Can A Damaged Spinal Cord Heal Itself?
Can A Damaged Spinal Cord Heal Itself?
Did you suffer damage to the spinal cord area? It happens frequently, and you have questions. Welcome to Ehline Law Firm. I am Michael Ehline, an attorney with expertise in medicine and law, as PI lawyers have to know PDR (physician’s desk reference). Our top-quality injury law firm focuses on assisting severely injured victims to recover compensation from the at-fault party or parties.
I also mentor law readers to become lawyers without an undergrad or law degree. Below, I cover how damage to the spinal cord can heal itself. I am doing this to help better understand this type of tort claim.
The team at Ehline Law Firm assists injured accident victims. I have won over $150 million for my clients. Now is the time to request a free consultation from a trusted Los Angeles spinal cord injury attorney. Please call (213) 596-9642. Alternatively, you may use the online consultation form to receive faster legal services from a compassionate and charismatic spinal cord injury law firm in Los Angeles.
The sad truth is that a spinal cord can’t always heal itself, no matter how powerful your nerve fibers and stem cells are. Though patients think they are healing and the pain subsides, this is a serious situation.
Does a Damaged Spinal Cord Heal Itself?
What Is a Spinal Cord Injury?
The spinal cord is a collection of different nerves found in the back, traveling from the bottom of your brain to your back, and you have 31 pairs of nerves, which leave the spinal cord and move to the legs, arms, abdomen, and chest. Those nerves allow the brain to give various commands to the muscles, which cause movement for the legs and arms. The arm nerves exit at the upper portion of your spinal cord, but your leg nerves, with their numerous nerve fibers, exit at the lower portion.
Your nerves control organ function, such as the bladder, bowels, lungs, and heart; the spinal cord signals control how fast the heart beats and how quickly or slowly you breathe. Other nerves can travel from the legs and arms back to your spinal cord, bringing information back from your limbs and organs to your brain.
Your nerves tell your mind things like temperature, position, pain, and touch, and it runs through your spinal canal, where doctors typically shave off stem cells. The bones in the back and neck (vertebrae) surround the canal with nerve fibers covering them, called the backbone, which contains various divisions.
There are:
- Seven neck or cervical vertebrae
- Five lower back or lumbar vertebrae
- 12 chest or thoracic vertebrae.
These vertebrae protect your spinal cord from injuries.
What Are the Types of Spinal Cord Injuries?
People with spinal cord damage will be highly sensitive to worsening injuries. We already know that other parts of your back and your brain can repair themselves with time. But your spinal cord may require stem cells and elective, exploratory surgery, even for seeking minor relief. Once you damage your back, outside sources must try and fix and heal you with surgery or physical therapy.
Generally, spinal injuries occur from a loss of normal blood supply, trauma, infection, or compression from a tumor, which causes nerve fibers and transmitters to become damaged. In the United States, 12,000 new cases occur, mostly in white males. Stem cells are largely experimental, making it harder for patients to try to regenerate nerve cells and nerve fibers using these new treatments.
Is There a Difference Between an Incomplete and Complete Spinal Cord Injury?
People with spinal cord damage may experience incomplete or complete cord damage. Patients with a complete spinal cord injury will experience total loss of muscle function and bodily sensation below the injury level.
For an incomplete spinal cord injury, there could be partial or full function below the injury level, making nerve fibers unable to transmit signals. Both upper and lower portions of your spinal cord often remain equally affected.
If the injury happens at the upper portion of your spinal cord (neck), quadriplegia-paralysis of legs and arms can occur. The spinal cord injury in the lower back typically affects the legs only (paraplegia-paralysis). When nerve fibers can’t transmit the information, you will end up wheelchair-bound.
Damage to the spinal cord and nerve fibers remains a severe issue. Most people suffering from spinal cord damage have problems for many years and never restore function. If negligence from another party caused your injury, you have rights.
At Ehline Law Firm, we are here to help you. Whether it was an incomplete injury or a complete one, you need the service of a respectable and caring lawyer on your side. Now is the time to seek our spinal cord injury attorneys. We’re going to ensure that you receive the proper medical care and can help with your insurance company’s concerns. Our team takes on many personal injury cases, including motor vehicle accidents and other catastrophic injuries.
If you experienced a loss of function because someone was negligent, we could help you seek treatment and compensation for your pain and suffering. Call us today to request a free consultation.
What Causes A Spinal Cord Injury?
Most people suffer damage to the spinal cord and surrounding nerve fibers because of trauma.
Motor vehicle accidents cause nearly half of these injuries. Other trauma types include:
- Falls from extreme heights
- Violence (gunshot and stabbing wounds to the spinal cord)
- Sports injuries (football, diving, equestrian, rugby, etc.)
Compression of the spinal cord can also cause spinal cord injury through inflammation, infection, and tumor, damaging your nerve fibers. If you have a smaller than routine spine canal (stenosis), you might be at higher risk of receiving an injury to your spinal cord or nerve fibers.
All your bodily tissues and nerve fibers, including your spinal cord, demand a good flow of blood supply to deliver nutrients and oxygen to the brain. Failure to receive blood to the spinal cord can cause injury to the neurons in the brain and other secondary damage.
A prolonged drop in blood pressure, compression of your blood vessels, and an aneurysm (ballooning of the blood vessels) can cause this. Even with the best treatment, you may never fully restore function when nerve fibers can’t regenerate or heal tissue damage.
What Are the Symptoms of a Spinal Cord Injury?
Spinal cord injury symptoms depend on the location of the injury and whether it is a complete injury or incomplete injury. With an incomplete injury, the patient has kept remaining function below the injury level, though with a complete injury, the patient has no function below the injury level. Whether you can restore function to nerve fibers and your back remains a hit-and-miss proposition.
Doctors know these conditions will cause a complete loss of muscle function, weakness, and a loss of sensation below the waistline. Depending on your injury level, you can experience a loss of control of your bladder and bowels and a loss of regular sexual function.
Upper back damage treatment can require the person to use a breathing machine (ventilator) or have difficulty breathing.
People with back problems should see a doctor to be correctly diagnosed so that treatment can ensue. However, you must seek spinal cord injury attorney help immediately.
Sleeping on your rights is not an option. Our compassionate injury lawyers and staff at Ehline Law Firm have 15 years of experience in various personal injury law practice areas. We go after the negligent party, assuring they pay for your life-changing injury to your backbone.
You should call our caring legal representatives today. We will put in your back injury insurance claim, and you will see how our charismatic lawyers’ assistance will increase your damages award. Choose the correct experienced, and aggressive Los Angeles spine injury attorney today!
How Do Doctors Diagnose a Spinal Cord Injury?
The first step for your doctor will be diagnosing your internal circuits responsible for controlling motor instructions for rhythmic movements such as walking. Your doctor will conduct a physical examination and a full work-up of the patient’s medical history.
The patient’s physician obtains the medical history and asks questions about the details surrounding the injury site and timing. Doctors must know the amount of time that has passed since the injury because this is a medical emergency.
The quicker a patient receives treatment, the better their chances of recovery. Other medical history details include prior back and neck injuries, surgeries, back or neck pain, loss of bladder or bowel control, weakness in the legs and arms, and loss of sensation in the legs and arms.
A physical examination includes testing to determine if the sensation of touch is intact within the legs and arms, but doctors perform muscle strength and reflex tests in the arms and legs, too. The patient may have to wear a cervical collar or stay on a backboard to keep them immobilized until the doctor determines whether the patient has damage to the spinal cord.
After that, the neck and back are X-rayed to identify a dislocation or fracture of the vertebrae. These may not be present in people with spinal cord damage. Patients can have a spinal cord injury with no damage to the vertebrae. X-rays can also help identify infections, tumors, and serious arthritis that could cause the damage.
Sometimes, doctors require a more advanced imaging test from a computed tomography (CT) scan. Here, the physician receives a better view of the patient’s vertebrae. CT scans identify vertebrae injuries not shown on a plain x-ray. Physicians who can’t find anything on the CT scan may request an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan, which is much more advanced.
An MRI is usually better for evaluating soft tissues, such as the spinal cord, nerves, intervertebral discs, and ligaments. It can also show evidence of a spinal cord injury.
What Treatment Options Can a Doctor Prescribe?
The first treatment step for people suspected of lumbar problems is ensuring their patient’s heart is beating, and their breathing remains unobstructed. Upper neck injuries will cause you to lose breathing control. Your doctor might require you to use a ventilator or a breathing tube.
Once your healer completes basic triage, back immobilization will be their treatment step, starting with basic first aid at the accident scene before ambulance transport. Well before arriving at the hospital, trained emergency medical technicians will use a cervical collar or place you on a backboard. Their goal here is to prevent the patient’s spine from moving. Further movement of people suffering back damage can cause permanent disability and increased lifetime pain.
After a physician diagnoses their patient’s condition, they may inject the victim with a high steroid dose. This reduces swelling and back inflammation. Using steroids for healing and treating back pain comes with risks. The patient’s physician should decide when and if steroids are necessary. Steroid use is only advantageous if they’re started within eight hours of the injury.
The doctor can put people with spinal cord injuries in traction by wrapping a halo device around their head, stabilizing the spine, and preventing more damage. Most cervical vertebrae damage cases require surgical healing intervention treatment.
A Patient’s Surgical Goals Will Include the following:
- Relieve spinal cord pressure. Your doctor will remove broken vertebrae portions compressing your medulla spinalis. Surgery will reduce compression symptoms if you have a tumor, severe arthritis, or infection, compressing your nerve signals.
- Stabilize your back. If you suffer a fracture, infection, or tumor weakening your vertebrae, your epidural space supporting your normal weight will be defunct, leaving your back will less protection. Your doctor can surgically infuse metal plates, rods, and screws to hold your vertebrae together, stabilizing them while your bones heal.
Many potential complications can occur and could require specific treatment options, such as:
- Depression
- Chronic pain
- Muscle spasms
- Blood clots
- Lung infections (pneumonia)
- Pressure sores
- Bowel incontinence (patient cannot control bowel movements)
- Urinary incontinence or urinary tract infections.
Most medical treatment focuses on spine injury rehabilitation after stabilization and initial treatments. These include methods to help patients maximize functions with occupational and physical therapy or assistive devices. It is debilitating to become injured, and many people with spinal cord problems never fully recover. If someone was negligent and caused damage to your central nervous system, they must be accountable and responsible for their actions.
Choose the best lawyer for your personal injury lawsuit. Ehline Law Firm has 15 years of experience and offers a case review to all people with spinal cord concerns. We have helped thousands of clients receive the compensation they deserve and have an impeccable reputation.
Our charismatic attorneys are there by your side and have won awards for their excellence, which include the Client Champion Gold Award for 2020. If you have questions, please call us today at (213) 596-9642 or use our online form for convenience.
What Is the Outlook for Patients with a Spinal Cord Injury?
The best chance at function recovery after a catastrophic back injury will be prompt treatment. Early stabilization and surgical decompression offer better recovery outcomes. Aggressive physical rehabilitation and therapy after surgery maximize recovery, too. Most recovery happens six months after the injury. If there is a remaining loss of function after 12 months, it is likely to become permanent.
A positive patient outlook remains essential for healing. Assistive devices allow people with spinal cord problems to integrate back into society and be productive. However, substance abuse, divorce, and depression are higher for people with spinal cord harm. Various treatment options and damaged spinal cord support groups can help with mental health problems related to spinal cord injury.
There is no reason for people to suffer unduly. If another party was responsible for the accident, they should pay for pain and suffering, medical care, medical bills, and insurance company claims. The compassionate injury lawyers at Ehline Law Firm are here to help. We offer a free case review and can help you obtain the money you need for spinal cord injury rehabilitation. Call today to request legal advice or ask questions relating to rehab and spinal injury concerns.
Is There a Spinal Cord Injury Cure?
Right now, there isn’t a cure for people with spinal cord injuries. Most scientists and physicians devote their lives to this goal. While you can see promising research advancements every day, most treatment options focus on promoting sensory function and reducing paralysis of the central nervous system.
Whether you suffered an incomplete or complete injury, it is time to seek legal advice from the top lawyers in Los Angeles. Call us today for a free consultation to learn if we can provide you with compensation for spine damage.
How Does the Spinal Cord Work?
Before getting too far ahead, we need to understand how the spinal cord works. This is going to help you focus on what happens as a result of the spinal cord injury.
Learn about the normal function and how it pertains to damage to the spinal cord:
What Is Spine Anatomy?
The spinal cord is soft and jelly-like, and the vertebral column protects it. A person’s spine column has 33 bones (vertebrae), each with a circular opening, like a donut’s hole. Every bone stacks on top of the other so that the spinal cord runs through the spinal column holes created by the stacks.
Each vertebra is part of a section, and they’re numbered and named from top to bottom, corresponding with their location on the backbone:
- Cervical vertebrae – located in the neck (numbers 1 to 7)
- Thoracic vertebrae – located in the upper back and attached to the person’s ribcage (numbers 1 to 12)
- Lumbar vertebrae – Located in the lower back (numbers 1 to 5)
- Sacral vertebrae – Located in the hip area (numbers 1 to 5)
- Coccygeal vertebrae – Located in the tailbone (numbers 1 to 4 fused.)
Although the hard vertebrae bones help protect your soft spinal cord from injury, your column isn’t just a hard bone. You will readily feel discs between the vertebrae made of semi-rigid cartilage. And you will see the narrow spaces between those discs as passages where your nerve fibers exit to your internal organs and limbs. Those passages are most vulnerable after receiving direct injury/nerve damage to the spinal column.
A person’s spinal cord uses segment organization and names/numbers from top to bottom. Every segment marks where the spinal nerves and nerve fibers emerge from the spinal cord to connect to particular bodily regions. The location of the spinal cord segments doesn’t correspond exactly to the vertebral locations but is a rough equivalent.
- Cervical spine nerves from C1 to C8 control signals to the neck, back of the head, shoulders, diaphragm, arms, and hands.
- Thoracic spine nerves from T1 and T2 control signals to parts of the abdomen muscles in the back and the chest muscles.
- Lumbar nerves from L1 to L5 control signals to parts of the leg, parts of the genital organs (external), the buttocks, lower parts of the back, and lower parts of the abdomen.
- Sacral nerves from S1 to S5 control signals to the feet, thighs, lower leg areas, the area around a person’s anus, and most of the genital organs (external).
- There is only one coccygeal nerve, and it carries sensory information from the lower back skin.
What Parts Make Up the Anatomy of the Spinal Cord?
A human spinal cord has core tissues containing nerve cells, surrounded by excessively long tracts of nerve fibers with axons inside. The tracts go up and down your spinal cord and carry signals to/from the brain. An average-sized spinal cord can vary in circumference from the width of a small finger to the size of a thumb. Your spinal cord extends through the upper portion of the vertebral canal roughly two-thirds of the way from the lower back to the base of the brain and is often 15 to 17 inches long, based on a person’s height.
Neurons make up the interior of the spinal cord, as well as the support cells (glia) and blood vessels. The neurons and dendrites (branching projections to help the neurons communicate with each other) reside in the H-shaped area called the “gray matter.”
This H-shaped gray matter in the spinal cord contains the motor neurons to control movement, small interneurons to handle internal bodily communication, and between the spinal cord segments. All these factors interact with your cells to receive the sensory signals and send the information to your brain.
White matter surrounds the gray matter. An insulating substance (myelin) covers many axons, allowing electrical signals to come quickly and freely. Myelin offers a white appearance, which is invariably why scientists call this area white matter.
Axons can carry signals from the brain along the descending pathways and up to the brain on the ascending pathways within a specific tract. Axons branch at the ends to make connections with other nerve cells simultaneously. Sometimes, the axons extend along the entire length of the person’s medulla spinalis.
A descending motor tract controls the smooth muscles of the internal organs and striated muscles (capable of voluntary contractions) within the legs and arms. This helps to adjust your autonomic regulation of blood pressure, stress responses, and body temperature. These nerve cells, with their pathways, start as brain neurons, sending electrical signals down specific vertebrate levels. Neurons within these segments send impulses to the rest of your central nervous system and can coordinate neural activity within your spine.
The ascending sensor tract transmits sensory signals from the extremities, skin, and internal organs that enter various spine segments, and the brain takes those signals. From there, your medulla spinalis contains neuronal circuits to control repetitive movements and reflexes, such as walking, which the brain activates through incoming sensory signals without input.
Your spine’s damage area circumferences will vary depending on your injury’s cervical-lumbar location. The cervical and lumbar sections remain larger because they supply your nerve cells and the peripheral nervous system for control of the upper torso and arms. These nerve fibers also signal your legs and lower body depending on factors like the number and strength of your nerve cells.
However, the lower extremities require more intense muscular control and receive more sensory signals from your nerve fibers. And this is why taking stem cells from healthy areas and injecting these stem cells into injured regions has proven successful in treating damage to your lumbar and supporting column.
The ratio of gray to white matter varies at each part of the spinal cord level and has a lot to do with the health of your nerve cells. In the cervical segment located in the neck, you can find white matter because more axons are going/from the brain to the rest of your backside.
There is a less white matter for the lower segments, such as the sacral, because the ascending axons haven’t entered the cord yet, and the descending axons already make contact with their targets on the way through your nerves.
Axons must pass between the vertebrae and link to your muscles and vertebrate. You can find 31 bundles or pairs of nerve cells, each with motor and sensory roots, to make connections within gray matter. Also, two pairs of nerves (a pair of sensory and motor root of the spinal cord on each side) emerge from every lumbar segment.
The location of your back injury will primarily determine nerve function changes, especially when assessing damage to the spine’s pathways. They control every bodily function, such as elimination, digestion, sweating, and breathing, as well as sensations in the legs and arms,s,d are acceptable to gross motor skills.
If nerve cells cannot travel through the nerve fibers, spine injury healing remains impossible.
How Do Spinal Cord Injuries and the Central Nervous System Relate?
The brain and medulla spinalis are your primary central nervous system or CNS components. The central nervous system controls almost all the functions in the body, but it is not the only neuron pathway inside your body.
The peripheral nervous system also includes the nerves that go to the skin, heart, limbs and other organs that aren’t part of the brain. The peripheral nervous system controls the nervous system, which regulates muscle movements and handles responses to sensations of pain and touch. You also have the autonomic nervous system providing nerve input that generates automatic reflect responses for the internal organs.
There are divisions for the autonomic nervous system, such as the sympathetic nervous system, which mobilizes the organs and functions during arousal and stress times, and the jumpy parasympathetic system,m which conserves resources and energy during relaxation times.
Which System Gets Injured?
In general, the peripheral nervous system receives damage after suffering an injury and your central nervous system.
With its abundant nerve cells, your spine remains the primary pathway for information transmission to and from your brain, bodily organs, and limbs, including your cells and nerve fibers. Its central nervous system receives sensory information from the trunk muscles, joints, skin, legs, and arms to relay to the brain.
On top of that, the central nervous system carries messages down from the brain and to the peripheral areas, directing voluntary movements and adjusting reflex movements. Since your spine plays a significant role in coordinating your muscle movements and interpreting sensory input, spinal cord damage can cause severe nerve fiber transmission communication with nerve cells, including your entire central nervous system, bleeding into your peripheral nervous system.
Patients suffering from the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system damage will often find it resulted from an accident like a motor vehicle collision. If you have had such a personal injury accident, it is imperative to focus on your health. As you recuperate and undergo medical treatment, you may worry about how you’ll pay your bills and be seeking restitution for your injuries. After your central nervous system suffers damage, it might be time for you to contact Ehline Law Firm’s charismatic lawyers.
Is Your Civil Negligence Law Firm Qualified To Handle My Accident?
Our negligence law firm focuses solely on personal injury cases. Our top-notch attorneys maintain a firm grasp of the law and how it relates to you. If your nerve cells sustain damage from a motorcycle accident that wasn’t your fault, please call us today.
We are compassionate and care about your results. People with spinal cord damage must focus on positivity, and we can ensure that the at-fault party receives punishment for what they did as your nerve cells and doctors go to work treating your injuries.
What Happens When There is an Injury to the Spinal Cord?
A spine injury typically starts with a traumatic, sudden blow to your back. You already know this can dislocate or fracture vertebrae, which is why you’re reading this landing page today, right?
The damages begin when your injury occurs because your ligaments, displaced bone fragments, and disc material can tear into or bruise your spinal cord tissue. Axons are cut off and damaged beyond repair, and the nerve cell membranes break. Sometimes, blood vessels rupture to cause significant bleeding in the gray matter, which spreads to other spinal cord areas within the next few hours.
Within minutes of the injury, the spinal cord swells and fills up the canal cavity at the level of damage. The swelling cuts off blood flow and oxygen to the spinal cord tissue. A person’s blood pressure can drop, sometimes dramatically, because the body has lost the ability to self-regulate. The blood pressure levels interfere with the axon and neuron electrical activities. These changes cause shock to your spine, lasting hours, several days, or longer.
While there is controversy among neurologists surrounding the impact and extent of shock and controversy within its definition regarding physiological characteristics, it appears that spine shock occurs in roughly half of these cases and often remains related directly to the severity and size of the injury.
During a spinal shock, entire spinal cord areas can become temporarily disabled, so they cannot usually communicate with a person’s brain. Complete paralysis can develop with a loss of sensation and limb reflexes.
The beginning of the devastation occurs with the tearing and crushing of axons, but this is only the start of what happens after suffering harm, and it can continue for many days.
That initial physical trauma then sets off other cellular and biochemical events to kill more neurons, trigger inflammatory immune system responses and strips the axons of their myelin insulation. Days or weeks later, after the second wave of damage, the destruction area increases to several segments below and above the original back injury, so the disability extent also increases.
Medical Care Remains Paramount?
This isn’t the only thing that happens in the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system throughout the days and weeks following an accident. It is imperative to seek medical care immediately afterward, but what happens when you do that and are still in pain?
People with spinal cord damage should always call a trusted and impressive lawyer to help them. Everything is expensive, and you experience trauma at every turn. Now, you’re seeking to find restitution from the secondary damage of the injury and should call a reputable lawyer at Ehline Law Firm. We are here to assist and offer free case evaluations. Call (213) 596-9642 to speak with a Los Angeles personal injury attorney today.
Do Blood Flow Changes Cause Ongoing Lumbar Damage?
Blood flow changes in or around the spinal cord start at the injured area but spread out to uninjured, adjacent areas and set off other problems throughout the body.
There is major blood flow reduction to the site of injury immediately afterward, which could last up to 24 hours and worsen if a doctor doesn’t treat it. Since there are differences within tissue composition, the impact is often more significant on the gray matter than the outside white matter.
Blood vessels within the gray matter can leak, and this can be as quick as five minutes after the injury. Cells that line the intact spinal cord blood vessels start swelling for reasons that doctors don’t clearly understand yet, which can continue to restrict blood flow at the site of injury. The combination of sluggish blood flow, swelling, and leaking prevent normal oxygen delivery and nutrients from getting to the neurons, causing most of them to die.
The body still tries to regulate its heart rate and blood pressure for the first hour or hour and a half more, but the blood flow rate becomes widespread, so self-regulation starts to cease. Heart rates and blood pressure drop significantly at this time.
Does the Neurotransmitter Release Kill the Nerve Cells?
After you suffer a spine injury, your body will release an excessive number of neurotransmitters (chemicals that help the neurons signal each other), causing more damage to the spinal cord and overexciting your nerve cells and nerve fibers.
Glutamate is the excitatory neurotransmitter, and the spinal cord’s nerve cells commonly use it to stimulate more activity in the neurons. However, when injury to your cells occurs, neurons flood out the area with glutamate for reasons that doctors and scientists do not understand yet. Excessive levels of glutamate trigger excitotoxicity while killing neurons (nerve cells and nerve fibers) and oligodendrocyte cells that protect and surround the axons.
Why Do Immune System Cells Invade to Create Inflammation?
Under normal conditions, the brain-blood barrier (which controls the passages of large molecules and cells between the central nervous system and circulatory system) keeps the immune system cells from entering the spinal cord or brain.
However, when blood vessels burst and leak into the spinal cord tissue, it breaks the brain-blood barrier, which leads to the immune system cells that usually circulate through the blood (primarily white blood cells) to invade the surrounding tissue to trigger an inflammatory response. Doctors characterize this inflammation as an influx of immune cells (monocytes, macrophages, T-cells, and neutrophils) and fluid accumulation.
Neutrophils enter first within 12 hours of the injury and remain for roughly a day. T-cells arrive three days after the spinal cord injury. Scientists and doctors do not understand the function they have for the injured spinal cord, but they regulate immune responses and kill infected nerve cells in a healthy back. Monocytes and macrophages enter once the T-cells scavenge all the cellular debris.
There is an upside to that immune system response because it helps to clean up debris and fight infection. However, the downside here is that it sets off a cytokine release, a group of molecules that send messages to the immune system and exert a malign influence on the activities of all nerve cells.
For example, the microglial cells usually function as onsite immune cells, but after you suffer a back injury, they respond to the cytokines signals. Hence your nerve cells may transform into macrophage-like cells to engulf damaged nerve cells and debris.
Next, these nerve cells will produce pro-inflammatory cytokines to recruit and stimulate other microglia in response. Stem cell therapy magnifies the nerve cells and helps them heal spine damage.
A spinal cord injury also stimulates the resting astrocytes to express more cytokines. Reactive astrocytes can participate in forming scar tissue inside your discs. Once calcified and hardened (fused), no amount of nerve cells may heal your back. You may require different surgeries, including disc replacement.
Researchers express controversy on whether or not an immune response is destructive or protective. Many scientists speculate that certain injury types evoke a more protective immune response that reduces the loss of your neurons/healthy nerve cells.
Can Free Radicals Attack Your Nerve Cells?
Another consequence of letting the immune system enter the nervous system is that spinal cord inflammation accelerates free radical production, including highly reactive oxygen molecules.
Normal cell metabolism produces free radicals as a by-product. These numbers are relatively small for healthy spinal cord and nerve cells and don’t cause harm. However, spine injury and the inflammation wave move through your central pattern generators and signal specific cells to produce too many free radicals.
Then, the free radicals disable and attack crucial molecules for cell function, such as those in cell membranes, by modifying the chemical structure within, including healthy nerve cells. Free radicals also change how the cells respond to survival factors and natural growth, turning the protective factors into destructive agents.
When Do Your Nerve Cells Start Self-Destructing?
Researchers believed cells only died during a spinal cord injury due to the trauma. However, recent findings reveal that cells within the injured spinal cord die from apoptosis, a sort of programmed cell death often described as a cellular suicide that can happen weeks or days after an injury.
Apoptosis remains a regular cellular event in various cellular systems and tissues. It can help a person’s body eliminate unhealthy and old cells by causing them to shrink and then implode. The nearby scavenger cells eat the debris. Specific molecules regulate apoptosis and can start or stop the process at will.
For unclear reasons, a spinal cord injury starts apoptosis, killing oligodendrocytes in the damaged areas of a person’s spinal cord weeks after the injury.
Oligodendrocyte death is another blow to the damaged spinal cord since those cells form myelin to wrap around the axons and can speed up the conduction of the body’s nerve impulses. In a sense, apoptosis strips the myelin from the intact axons in the adjacent descending and ascending pathways to impair further the spinal cord and its ability to communicate with the person’s brain.
Is Secondary Damage Possible? When Does It Start?
Secondary damage begins, and the many mechanisms for secondary damage, such as apoptosis, free radical release, inflammation, excitotoxicity, and restricted blood flow, increase the damaged area of the injured spinal cord.
Damaged axons become dysfunctional because they’re disconnected from the brain and don’t get the myelin required. Glial cells cluster and form a scar, creating barriers to the axons that could offer axon regeneration and reconnecting. Often, whole axons could remain, but there aren’t enough to convey essential information to the brain.
Saving Axons Means Less Axon Regeneration Issues?
There is interest among researchers in studying the mechanisms for the secondary damage wave because it could reduce disabilities and save axons if there was a way to stop the process.
We understand how challenging it is to understand the whole process of damage to the spinal cord. With the neurons in the brain not receiving the information they need, time is of the essence to restore sensory function and reduce nerve cell damage while helping with axon regeneration.
Therefore, if you have a spinal cord injury, seek immediate treatment now. When things stabilize, you can focus on creating a personal injury case to get restitution for damages to the spinal cord. Once you are ready to continue, Ehline Law Firm is at your side.
It would help if you had an aggressive and experienced Los Angeles spinal cord injury lawyer, and we have helped millions of spinal cord injury victims get compensation. Call today to receive a free consultation for your injury case.
What Are Immediate Treatments for Damage to the Spinal Cord?
Many treatment options are available for damage to the spinal cord, but immediate treatment is essential to help the axons survive. The outcome of the spinal cord injury directly relates to the number of surviving axons.
There is less disability with a higher number of normally functioning axons. Consequently, the most critical consideration when moving a person to the hospital or trauma center is to prevent more injury to the spinal cord and its components.
A spinal cord injury might not be evident to every victim right away. But your head injuries (especially with frontal face trauma), penetrating back injuries, pelvic fractures, and fall from a high place injuries will cause severe spinal cord damage. And as we discussed, you can’t rely upon axon regeneration as a failsafe.
Until a doctor does an image of the spine at a trauma or emergency center, people who could have a spinal cord injury must act as if they have one.
That way, less significant spine movement can cause more damage and decreased function, lessening your chances of axon regeneration. Typically, emergency personnel transport them in a recumbent or lying down position with a backboard and rigid collar to immobilize the spine’s normal function.
Respiratory complications usually indicate how severe the spinal cord injury is. One-third of people with a neck injury will require breathing assistance, possibly needing respiratory support with intubation.
Here, your doctor will insert a breathing tube into your throat or nose, into your Cerebro spine area. This tube connects to an oxygen tank and provides the air the person needs to breathe.
What Is the Standard Spine Injury Treatment Modernly?
Methylprednisolone
In 1990, Methylprednisolone became the standard acute spinal cord injury treatment because of its steroidal properties. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders/Stroke supported a large-scale clinical trial to show that patients receiving the drug showed significantly better recovery when a doctor administered the medication within eight hours of the injury.
Methylprednisolone can help reduce the damage to the nerve cells and decrease inflammation near the site of injury by suppressing the activities of immune cells.
Spine Traction and Realignment
Realignment of the spine comes next with axial traction or a rigid brace. This happens as soon as possible to help stabilize the spine to prevent more damage.
On roughly the third day after the spinal cord injury, the doctor gives the patient a complete neurological exam to diagnose the injury’s severity and predict the extent of recovery.
Doctors use a standard diagnostic tool called the ASIA Impairment Scale, MRIs, X-rays, and other advanced imaging techniques, to visualize the entire length of the person’s spine.
What Is the Impairment Scale from the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA)?
A doctor can classify a spinal cord injury as an incomplete or a complete injury, depending on how much of the cord width remains. An incomplete injury indicates that the spinal cord’s ability to convey messages to/from the brain isn’t completely lost.
Those with incomplete injuries retain some of their sensory and motor functions below the damage. However, a complete injury indicates a total lack of motor and sensory function below the injury level.
- A Classification – Complete injury; below the injury level, there is no sensory or motor function preservation, including sacral segments from S4 to S5.
- B Classification – Incomplete injury; there is no preservation of the motor function below a neurologic level, but there could be sensations within the sacral segments from S4 to S5.
- C Classification – There is the preservation of motor function below the neurologic level, but over half of the key muscles below this level have a muscle grade of less than “3” (not strong enough to move the body against gravity).
- D Classification – Incomplete injury; there is a preservation of motor function below the neurologic level, and a half or more of the muscles below that have a muscle grade of at least “3” or more (the patient can move joints against gravity).
- E Classification – Normal; sensory function and motor functions are normal.
Where Do You Find a Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer Near You in Los Angeles?
If you have experienced a full or partial loss of function because of a spinal cord injury that someone else is to blame for, now is the time to seek the assistance of a compassionate law firm in Los Angeles.
Ehline is here to assist you, and our attorneys focus on getting restitution for your medical costs and loss of quality of life. If physical therapy can help with your type of injury, we ensure that you receive it and the responsible party pays. Please call us today at (213) 596-9642 to speak with an aggressive and caring lawyer near you.
How Do a Spinal Cord Injury and the Body Relate?
People with spinal cord injuries who survive are sure to have medical complications, including bowel and bladder dysfunction, chronic pain, and increased susceptibility to heart and respiratory problems. A successful recovery depends primarily on how well the doctors and patients handle chronic conditions daily.
What Happens to a Person’s Breathing?
Injuries to the spinal cord above the C3 to C5 segments supply the phrenic nerves and diaphragm with oxygen and can stop breathing. People with such injuries require immediate ventilation support. The body can preserve diaphragm function when the damage occurs at or below the C5 level.
But the person’s breathing is often shallow and rapid, and people could experience trouble clearing secretions from the lungs and coughing because of their weak thoracic muscles. When pulmonary function improves, many people with C4 injuries can get off mechanical ventilation within weeks or months after the injury.
Can Pneumonia Develop?
Respiratory complications often result in pneumonia and are a leading cause of death for people with an injury to the spine. Intubation can increase a person’s risk of developing VAP (ventilatory-associated pneumonia) by up to three percent for each day of intubation.
Over a quarter of spinal cord injury deaths result from VAP. Intubated patients require monitoring for VAP and should receive antibiotics if those symptoms appear.
How Do Low Blood Pressure and Irregular Heart Beat Relate?
Heart arrhythmias and blood pressure instability often accompany injuries to the spinal cord within the cervical region. Because the cardiac accelerator nerves get interrupted, the heart beats dangerously slow or pounds irregularly and rapidly.
Usually, arrhythmias appear the first two weeks after an injury and are most severe and common for serious damage to the cervical and lumbar regions.
Low blood pressure often occurs because of loss of tone within the blood vessels, which have to widen and cause the blood to pool in small arteries too far away from the patient’s heart. Usually, a doctor treats this with intravenous infusion to help build blood volume.>Should You Worry About Blood Clots?
Damage to the cervical and lumbar regions means people are at triple risk for blood clots. During the first 72 hours, the risk level is low, but it is essential to use preventative measures like anticoagulation drug therapy after that.
Does the Body Suffer Spasms?
The spinal cord controls most reflex movements, but the brain regulates them. After the damage to the spinal area, the brain can’t regulate reflex activity because there is little or no information. Reflexes can exaggerate with time, which causes spasticity.
If the spasms are severe, the person may require medical treatment. However, spasms may help while hindering because they tone the muscles, so they don’t waste away. With time, most patients learn to use the increased tone within the legs to turn over in bed, stand, and get into and out of a wheelchair.
What Is Autonomic Dysreflexia?
Autonomic dysreflexia primarily affects people with upper back or neck injuries and is a life-threatening reflex action. It occurs when there is stimulus, pain, or irritation to the CNS below the injury level. That irritated area tries sending a signal to the brain.
But it can’t get through, so the reflex action happens with no regulation from the neurons in the brain. Unlike spasms affecting the muscles, autonomic dysreflexia affects the organ and vascular systems.
Anything causing irritation or pain can set off the autonomic dysreflexia, such as:
- The urge to defecate or urinate
- Cuts
- Pressure sores
- Sunburn
- Bruises
- Burns
- Ingrown toenails
- Any pressure
- Tight clothing.
As an example, the need to urinate could set off a rapid heartbeat or high blood pressure. If uncontrolled, this could lead to death, seizures, or stroke. Sweating or flushing systems, anxiety, a pounding headache, vision changes, sudden high blood pressure, and arm/leg goosebumps can also signal autonomic dysreflexia.
Treatment must be swift and include emptying the bowels or bladder, changing positions, and removing tight clothing.
Can You Develop Pressure Ulcers or Sores?
Pressure sores are skin tissue areas that break down because there is continuous pressure in those areas. Those with quadriplegia and paraplegia are more susceptible to pressure sore development because they can’t move independently.
Any place that supports weight is vulnerable. When those areas press on a surface for extended periods, the skin compresses, reducing blood flow to the site. The skin breaks down as the blood supply gets cut off for a long time.
Since damage to the back area eliminates or reduces the sensation below the injury level, people aren’t often aware of the standard signals to tell them to change position, so a caregiver must shift them periodically. Good hygiene and nutrition can encourage healthy skin growth and prevent pressure sores.
Why Is There So Much Pain?
Paralyzed people often have neurogenic pain from the damage to the nerve cells at the injury site. For many injury survivors, intense burning, stinging, or pain sensations do not stop because of bodily hypersensitivity.
Others may suffer musculoskeletal pain and shoulder pain from overuse of the shoulder joints to push the wheelchair or to use the arms to transfer to another position. Chronic pain treatments include acupuncture of nerve fibers, medications, surgery, and brain or electrical stimulation of spinal cord cells (axon regeneration).
What Bowel and Bladder Problems Might You Encounter?
Many central nervous system injuries can affect your nerve-bowel and bladder functionality because your nerve cells controlling those organs originated within the segments where your lower back terminates. Because of this, your brain gets cut off from its input-output circuit from the waist down.
Without nerve fibers coordinating with your brain, your urethra muscles and bladder can’t efficiently work together. Hence, you will experience abnormal urination results. You may find your bladder empties without warning your nerves, suddenly becoming too complete with no urine release. When your bladder releases, the urine still backs up into the person’s kidneys because it can’t get past the body’s urethral sphincter.
Most people who suffer damage to the back area require an indwelling catheter or intermittent catheterization to empty the bladder sufficiently.
Similarly, damage to your back can affect bowel function. Anal sphincters will remain tight, so bowel movements happen instantly on reflex when the bowel is full. Sometimes, your nerve cells will allow your muscles to permanently relax (flaccid bowel), so people can’t have a bowel movement. This necessitates more frequent attempts at bowel emptying. You may require manual removal of your stool to prevent internal impaction. Usually, people use a regularly scheduled program to avoid bowel accidents and further nerve damage.
What Issues Relate to Reproductive/Sexual Function?
Injuries to your cells and sensor cortex will significantly impact reproductive and sexual function for men than in women. Many injured women remain fertile and can bear or conceive children despite damaged nerve fibers and bodily function losses. People suffering severe injuries can retain/regain orgasmic function. Still, most people with damaged nerve fibers and cells will lose all or some of their ability to reach sexual satisfaction fully.
Men will often suffer ejaculation and erection problems, but this will depend on the severity of the injury to their nerve cells. Many men have compromised fertility because the sperm decreases its motility. Treatments for males can include electrical and vibratory stimulations or ED drugs.
Once the person survives the injury, they must focus on coping emotionally and psychologically with the situation. The concern is how to live as normally as possible with a disability. Doctors can predict long-term outcomes reasonably for many spinal cord injury victims. That way, patients can set goals for themselves and have realistic expectations of what might happen.
Why Should You Seek a Personal Injury Lawyer from Ehline Law Firm?
We understand that this is a challenging and traumatizing time for you, but the secondary damage effects you now face will likely stay with you forever. It is essential to get back as much sensory function as possible and protect the neurons in the brain.
However, part of the spine injury recovery process must focus on getting restitution for those who caused the damage. Call us or use the online form to talk to compassionate, aggressive, and caring lawyers who have worked for you from day one.
Can Rehabilitation Help You Recover from Your Spinal Cord Injury?
No two people experience the same injuries and emotions, but everyone usually feels anxious, frightened, and confused about what has happened. You may also have mixed feelings; relief that you lived and disbelief about your disabilities.
Rehabilitation programs offer emotional and social support through skill-building activities, physical therapy, and counseling. Education and the active involvement of the injured person, friends, and family are crucial here.
The doctor specializing in rehabilitation and physical medicine leads the rehabilitation team, which can include:
- Physical therapists
- Social workers
- Occupational therapists
- Rehabilitation nurses
- Recreational therapists
- Vocational counselors
- Rehabilitation psychologists
- Nutritionists
- Other specialists when needed.
Typically, a program manager or caseworker coordinates your care.
During the initial rehabilitation phase, therapists emphasize arm and leg strength because communication and mobility are the two essential functional areas. Mobility might only be possible with help from leg braces, walkers, or wheelchairs. Communication skills, including telephone usage, typing, and writing, might also require adaptive devices.
Physical therapy can include exercise programs focused on muscle strengthening. Occupational therapy redevelops a person’s fine motor skills. There are bowel and bladder management programs to teach patients toilet routines and learn self-grooming techniques. Sometimes, patients also require coping strategies to deal with recurring episodes of neurogenic pain, autonomic dysreflexia, and spasticity.
Vocational rehabilitation starts with assessing the person’s basic work skills, cognitive capabilities, current dexterity, and physical abilities to determine potential employment. From there, the vocational rehab specialist identifies likely places of work, determines required assistive equipment, and focuses on creating a user-friendly workplace.
If the disability prevents the person from returning to work, therapists primarily focus on encouraging productivity through various activities that provide self-esteem and satisfaction. These can include memberships for special interest groups, hobbies, educational classes, and community/family event participation.
Recreation therapy is also necessary to encourage people to build on their current abilities to participate in athletic or recreational activities at their mobility level. Engaging in athletics and recreational outlets helps spinal cord injury sufferers achieve a regular and balanced lifestyle while providing opportunities for self-expression and socialization.
Why Should I Choose Excellence and Aggressiveness from a Personal Injury Attorney?
Part of the spinal cord injury conundrum focuses on blame. You may have severe damage to the spinal cord area and want someone to pay for your problems. If another party was to blame, you have every right to seek restitution, but you need the experience and aggressive nature of Ehline Law Firm.
We promise to assist injury victims, and we’ve won over $150 million for our clients. If you sustained a severe injury from an accident, you require help from a Los Angeles, personal injury lawyer, and we offer free consultations. Please call (213) 596-9642. If that doesn’t work for you, choose our online consultation form and get quick legal service from a compassionate and charismatic spine injury law firm in the Los Angeles area.
How Is Research Helpful for Patients Suffering from Injuries to the Spinal Cord?
Is it possible to rebuild a damaged spinal cord? This is a top question asked by scientists, driving ba. Investigators work to understand the biological mechanisms that promote or inhibit new growth within the spinal cord. While they are making remarkable discoveries on how axons and neurons grow in the CNS, they’re also learning why and when axon regeneration fails after an adult vertebral column injury. Understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in how a damaged spinal cord works can point out how therapies might prevent secondary damage, promote the regrowth of neurons in the brain, encourage axon regeneration, and much more.
Medical field research findings could help back injury victims someday. Genetic studies by doctors have revealed many molecules can encourage axon regeneration within a developing CNS but not in adults. Research into embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells is essential to further the knowledge of how the cells communicate.
Basic research describes the mechanisms involved in apoptosis, a mysterious process where large groups of apparently healthy cells tend to self-destruct. New rehab therapies retrain the nerve cell circuits through electrical stimulation of the muscle groups and forced motion to help patients regain their loss of function.
Understanding Spine Repair Principles
Many National Institute of Neurological Disorders/Stroke researchers focuses more on advancing people’s understanding of four primary spinal cord repair principles, including:
- Protecting the surviving nerve cells from more damage
- Replacing any damaged nerve cells
- Stimulating axon regeneration (regrowth) and targeting the connections correctly
- Retraining the neural circuits to help restore bodily function.
Spinal cord damage claims are complex. Repairing your spinal cord means your medical team accounting for the various potential damage during the mishap. Your medical and legal team must isolate what is causing your suffering. Since your spinal cord’s cellular and molecular environments constantly change at the site of injury, continuing weeks or months later, you must seek combination therapies. Your medical treatments will address specific damage types at various points in time.
What Is Happening Now and What Future Research Might Bring?
While scientists and doctors look for new ways to help spine injury victims, Ehline Law Firm is here to protect your rights and fight for the compensation you deserve now. However, it is uplifting to learn what the future could hold and how research is paving the way for new and better treatments and, hopefully, a cure.
The past decade of spinal cord injury research produced many discoveries that make it an attainable goal to repair injured backs. Fueled mainly by private funding and federal money, this is something that 10,000 or so Americans can look forward to when they sustain such traumatic injuries.
Since back injuries predominantly happen to those under 30 years old, the human cost is exceptionally high. Significant improvements in acute and emergency care improve survival rates but can also increase how many people have to cope with a severe disability for life. There is a disproportionately high cost to society because of lost income, disability payments, and health care costs compared to other medical conditions.
People must consider the biological complexities associated with back injuries before they can discover more successful ways to repair them. Also, researchers must create more rehabilitative strategies to reduce life-long disability, which is not easy.
Researchers actively search out new methods and develop innovative research strategies to make such discoveries, but it is still far from curing back injuries. Your cerebrospinal fluid cannot always heal back wounds.
However, in time, doctors and surgical staff can use various tools and treatments to force you to repair yourself after a sensory cortex injury.
Ehline Law Firm is hopeful that this is going to come soon. However, our job isn’t finished if better treatments become available. We must fight for each spine injury victim to get the compensation and care they deserve when someone else is at fault for the situation. We always work hard for our clients and are aggressive against insurance companies and other parties so that you see restitution and can work on your quality of life and move forward from the incident.
The initial shock of the injury is ebbing, and now you focus on trying to live life after the spine injury. Life isn’t easy, and we completely understand what you’re going through. However, it would help if you didn’t let those responsible get away with what they did. It is essential to hold them accountable, and a personal injury claim is a way to go. Ehline Law Firm is here to assist. You require an experienced Los Angeles spine injury attorney, and we are aggressive enough to get you what you deserve. Determine why we’re a top law firm in the Los Angeles area and what we can do for you:
What Reasons to Choose Ehline Law Firm for Spinal Cord Injury Claims?
Most people focus on complete paralysis when they think of spinal cord injuries, but that is not the only result. Other symptoms can arise, including loss of function, mobility, and numbness. As you continue physical therapy and gain more confidence, you still have to deal with those devastating effects. It is no stretch of your imagination to believe back injuries can be life-changing. We already know these injuries can happen in a split second. Whether you suffered a car accident, violent assault, or a slip-and-fall, you have months and years of rehabilitation, pain, and the inability to hold a job. Such injuries are devastating because they involve spine trauma and can sever or damage it severely.
The physical burdens aren’t the only thing to worry about because you also have various emotions and medical bills to cover. You’re in shock and try to deal with everything, all while you face an uncertain future. Most people unwittingly accept the insurance company’s check, though it is often less than fair. If that has happened, all hope isn’t lost. You may not know the actual outcome or extent of your injury for many years, and you deserve total compensation, regardless of what that entails.
Why Is There a Complex Nature for Spinal Cord Cases?
Spinal cord injuries are highly complex and severe. It is critical to choose an attorney specializing in this personal injury type. With us by your side, we go after the party responsible for ensuring that they’re accountable for their actions, which includes fighting for the money required to handle pain and suffering, medical expenses, lost wages, and ongoing treatment.
As your experienced and aggressive spine injury attorney, we protect your family while you face and deal with your long road to recovery.
Many expenses are sure to result and can place too much of a financial burden on families after a serious spinal injury, and they include:
- Standing frames
- Adapted driving controls for vehicles
- Fertility treatments (men and women)
- Home modifications
- Physical therapy for many years to come.
Should You Pick a Lawyer with Expertise?
It is crucial to have the right experience when handling back injuries. Your lawyer is your secret weapon and engages in battle with your insurance company (or that of the responsible party). Aggressive approaches are necessary here because insurance companies want to pay you as little as possible. It is best to let a lawyer handle everything for you because you’re not in the right frame of mind to take all that on yourself.
Choose a lawyer with experience dealing with these cases, circumstances, and claims. You may not know that the manufacturer of a faulty product is the one to fight, but we do. We look at all the paperwork and claims, document everything, and determine who is at fault. For example, you fall at work because of negligent and unsafe conditions. Our job is to prove that the employer failed to fix that issue or deliberately caused that unsafe condition. From there, we make the company responsible and accountable for its negligence.
Why Do You Need Someone who Knows the Legal Process and How to Negotiate?
No one expects you to understand the complicated legal procedures when filing a spine injury insurance claim. Our skilled and aggressive attorneys handle these claim types regularly. So we know what legal documents to file, when to do it, how to fill out forms correctly, and what the statute of limitations is for personal injury cases.
We understand more than others how the insurance company works; it tries to make you look bad or trip you up each step of the way. As your lawyer, we ensure that no one takes advantage of you. It is not easy or pleasant to go head-to-head with an insurance company alone. It could cost you thousands or millions of dollars from your settlement.
When you work with our compassionate and charismatic spine injury law firm, you have the best at your side. Personal injury law is highly specialized and requires a medical understanding of the injury and the legal processes surrounding these cases.
Our skilled spinal cord injury attorneys go to work immediately when you call us to fill out the legal documents you need, figure out when to send them, and understand what information you need to handle the claim. With everything else, we also have to figure out timelines.
As your spinal cord injury lawyer, we offer the best-negotiating skills as we work with the different insurance companies and parties involved with the case. Most importantly, we seek compensation for pain and suffering, lost wages, necessary life accommodations, and medical bills.
With our skillful negotiations, we can help you settle the matter sooner, get more money for compensation, and help you rest so that you can get your life back on track.
Why Should I Understand How to Value a Claim?
You’re a regular person who lived an everyday life before all this happened. You probably don’t know a fair settlement offer or how to value the claim. You should call Ehline Law Firm at (213) 596-9642 because we do the math for you.
There are countless factors involved when valuing a claim, including but not limited to the following:
- Estimates for future medical needs
- Insurance company strategies
- Pain and suffering assessments
- Injury analysis.
Spinal cord damage remains highly expensive and traumatic, requiring you to receive medical expert consultations to evaluate your condition and determine your current costs and future potential needs.
Do You Have the Motivation to Help?
At Ehline Law Firm, we work on a contingency basis, which means you don’t pay anything until we win your case. Why is that important? We are all in and naturally have the incentive to work hard to get you everything you deserve. You have a dependable, intelligent, and focused lawyer on your side with extensive experience (over 15 years) working against insurance companies.
Why Do Lawyers Understand the Various Spinal Cord Injuries and Their Effects?
Spinal cord injuries are always different from each other based on various factors. Severe types are often called complete injuries, which means the person suffers tremendously and can no longer feel or move below the injury site. Incomplete injuries mean a partial sense of feeling or movement is still below the injury.
Most medical professionals categorize the different injuries to your spine based on a paralyzed body part, such as:
- Hemiplegia – There is only one paralyzed side (complete or incomplete).
- Diplegia – There is only one paralyzed region on either side (complete or incomplete).
- Monoplegia – You have one paralyzed limb (complete or incomplete).
- Paraplegia – You have a paralyzed pelvic region or both legs (complete or incomplete).
- Quadriplegia – Both arms and legs are fully paralyzed (complete or incomplete).
Why Do I Need to Hire a Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer in Los Angeles?
Everyone knows how complicated the legal process is. It can get extremely confusing and is the only reason to hire an attorney. However, you may think that your spinal cord personal injury claim is black and white, so it is straightforward to handle.
Many believe that the judge will rule in their favor and against the responsible party that paralyzes the individual. However, money is the only thing people care about when it comes down to the wire. Regardless of how guilty a corporation or individual is, they will shortchange the injured party. They can do that by hiring legal teams to help them prove that they’re not responsible for the injuries you sustained.
If you try to tackle your personal injury case alone or use an inferior attorney, you might not receive all the compensation you deserve. It is always best to work with a good lawyer, and the ones at Ehline Law Firm are aggressive and compassionate for you to seek restitution of the total amount from those responsible.
What Characteristics Do I Need in My Lawyer?
It would help if you always chose a lawyer specializing in your injury type to ensure they have the proper knowledge to handle the case efficiently. At Ehline Law Firm, our team focuses primarily on personal injury cases, emphasizing spine injuries.
Experience is crucial for your case. Though beginners can have impressive wins, it doesn’t indicate they are the right team for you. Each issue is highly unique, so what applied in that instance may not help you now. It is always better to go with a law firm with many years of experience. That means they have more practical exposure to spine injury cases and have won many of them. Eline Law Firm has 15 years of experience, winning over $150 million for our clients in the past.
It would help if you also had someone who offers support. Traumatizing back injuries will be detrimental to your health and take many years to recover. This winding road isn’t something you want to endure alone or with only your family by your side. You and your loved ones must have someone compassionate to turn to when life gets rough. Ehline Law Firm is beside you for each step you take. We know money can’t bring back the life you had, but it can help you cope with your new life and handle any expenses that arise from this traumatic event.
What Are Some Key Terms I Should Understand?
Doctors are often negligent when they do not perform the right treatments or realize a spinal cord injury. Professionals have a duty to you, and any breach of duty means they were negligent. Hold them accountable by seeking restitution. Here are a few key terms you should know:
Duty
The outcome of the negligence case depends on whether the doctor owed a duty to the injured party. A duty arises when there’s a relationship between two people, and the professional must act a certain way with a standard of care toward the patient. Usually, a judge determines if someone owes a duty of care to the injured party and finds that duty exists under specific circumstances.
Breach of Duty
It isn’t enough for one person to prove that someone else owed a duty to them. Your injury lawyer must prove the negligent party breached that duty to you. This occurs when the defendant fails to exercise appropriate care to fulfill that duty. Unlike the question of whether a duty exists, a jury must decide the issue of whether the at-fault party breached the duty of care.
Causation
Traditional negligence case rules for legal duty require the plaintiff to prove that the defendant’s action caused the injury. Called a “but0For’ causation, it means because of the defendant’s motion, the injury occurred.
Proximate cause relates to the defendant’s responsibility within the negligence case. The defendant is responsible for the harm they might have foreseen through their actions. If the person caused damages outside the scope of purposed anticipated risks, the plaintiff can’t prove that the at-fault party’s actions caused the injuries.
Damages
In a negligence case, the plaintiff (injured person) must prove some legally recognized harm. This often occurs as a physical injury to property or a person. It isn’t enough that the at-fault party failed to use reasonable care. That failure must result in actual damages to the injured person for whom the at-fault party owed a duty of care.
Comparative Fault (Pure Comparative Negligence)
Comparative fault (responsibility) is the doctrine of tort law comparing the fault of each person in a lawsuit for the injury. A judge or jury divides the fault among the parties using percentages and awards appropriate amounts of money to the plaintiff.
With pure comparative negligence, the accident victim recovers some compensation for the injury, even if they are at fault to some degree. That fault is higher than the negligent person’s fault.
Do You Want a Damage To The Spinal Cord Lawyer With A Team To Fight For You?
Michael Ehline is the lead counsel at Ehline Law Firm. He had no law or undergrad degree and started reading for the law before becoming a lawyer. Because Michael remains a medically disabled US Marine, he focuses on honor and respect.
Everyone hears horror stories relating to spine injuries and always believes they can’t happen to them. One that is particularly harrowing is the one on Brooke Burns. A little over a decade ago, she dove into her Los Angeles backyard swimming pool as she always did each warm night. However, a pool light burned out earlier, and she hit her head when she misjudged the depth of the water. Though Burns narrowly avoided paralysis, it served as a reminder to everyone how fragile life is. Had she hit her head a bit harder or shot at a different angle, things could have been other for her.
Though that was a self-inflicted injury, it becomes more harrowing when another party is blamed. A quick clean-up of the spill or a sign in place to warn of it can make the difference between falling and paralysis or living a whole and happy life. Anyone can fall victim to a back and cord injury, but they could have prevented this issue when someone is negligent. You want to hold them accountable and make them pay for what they did (or didn’t do), and the law is on your side.
It would help if you had a positive attitude, discipline, and a do-or-die mentality. These indicate that your lawyer focuses on your needs, including medical treatment, and getting you the monetary compensation you deserve. Michael Ehline and his team offer intense preparation for every case and know how to set and keep their goals.
When you call this law firm, you’re not only getting an aggressive attorney to fight for you. You also promise to meet them anywhere, including your hospital, a Los Angeles law office, or your home. Since you are struggling right now, the team at Ehline Law Firm can help you find the proper medical care for your damage to the spinal area. Our lawyers will give you ideas on paying for your consideration, including out-of-pocket expenses in the beginning. Yes, you may have to pay for medical care (or keep track of the bills you receive and cannot pay). However, cord damage restitution is likely to follow when you have a caring and compassionate law firm team on your side.
Now is your chance to work with experienced and aggressive spine cord injury attorneys. Call us at (213) 596-9642 for superior injury attorneys. If you can’t talk on the phone, you must never hesitate to fill out the online contact form. It is convenient, and we can get back to you when best for you!
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Michael Ehline
Michael Ehline is an inactive U.S. Marine and world-famous legal historian. Michael helped draft the Cruise Ship Safety Act and has won some of U.S. history’s largest motorcycle accident settlements. Together with his legal team, Michael and the Ehline Law Firm collect damages on behalf of clients. We pride ourselves on being available to answer your most pressing and difficult questions 24/7. We are proud sponsors of the Paul Ehline Memorial Motorcycle Ride and a Service Disabled Veteran Operated Business. (SDVOB.) We are ready to fight.