Posted: July 11, 2012
If you have suffered a personal injury as a result of the fault of another and your back is your major injury you probably have questions. Not only are you concerned about getting fair compensation, but your primary concern is getting better. Money never makes up for impaired health.
Lumbar Herniated Disk
As a Cincinnati personal injury attorney I have dealt with numerous back injuries for my clients and have had to make sense of medical terminology. What would you understand if your doctor said, "you have a herniated disc causing myelopathy and lumbar spinal stenosis at L4-L5." What if the doctor then said,"You need a decompressive diskectomy and fusion at L4L5.
I have blogged previously about the legal aspects and calculating value for a back injury, at my Cincinnati personal injury and Accident attorney blog . But now I'm talking about the relationship between you and your doctor and understanding what is really wrong with you back. Even more important, what should be done to fix it. I found a great resource for back injuries called Spine-Health .
It gives you questions to ask your doctor before deciding to have surgery.
1. What type of surgery are you recommending? Why?
2. What is the source of the pain that is being addressed? How do you know this? (Exploratory back surgery is not done).
3. Please explain the procedure - at a very high level in great detail. What are my non-surgical options?
4. What is the natural course of my condition if it is not surgically addressed?
5. What would you recommend if this were your family?
6. How long will the surgery take?
7. What are side effects, potential risks and complications?
8. What is the recovery period?
9. Can you draw a picture of what is wrong?
10. Can you draw a picture of the surgery?
11. What will my function and pain be afterwards?
There are multiple modalities to treat a back injury. Here is a video of a low back laminectomy from my friends at Medical legal art. Lumbar Laminectomy Before you go under the knife get all your questions answered. It may be too late afterwards.
By Anthony Castelli Attorney 8170 Corproate Park Cincinnati, Ohio 45242 www.castellilaw.com
