An injury doesn't need to be severe to cause you significant nerve damage. Unfortunately, injuries that look severe—like broken bones and open wounds—are easier to prove. All your attorney has to do is to point to a few photos. However, when you suffer from nerve damage, the pain can be excruciating, and may linger long after the obvious wounds have healed. If you are filing a lawsuit due to a personal injury that has caused lasting nerve damage and pain, learn what you can do to provide evidence of your injuries, should your case ever go before a judge or jury.
Types Of Nerve Pain
Nerve damage that causes paralysis is generally easy to prove. Most nerve pain, however, is more subtle and less easily documented.
Common causes of nerve pain can be pinched nerves in your back that cause sciatic pain all the way into your hips and legs. Or, nerves that were severed due to trauma (injury) or surgery can leave you with numbness or pins and needles in your hands, feet, fingers and toes.
Other common symptoms of nerve pain include twitching, tingling, burning, and weakness in arms, legs, and even necks and facial muscles.
Documentation That Helps Prove Nerve Pain
There are several tests that your attorney may ask you to undergo, if you haven't already, to help provide evidence of your nerve pain. While the tests can't actually document your pain, they can document your nerve damage. Proof of nerve damage lends credibility to the statements you make about your pain. The most common two tests are
1.) Electromyography (EMG): This test is minimally invasive, but still unpleasant to undergo because pins with electrical impulses are inserted directly into your muscles, causing involuntary contractions. However, it can often prove nerve damage that isn't easy to otherwise document.
These tests are particularly effective at mapping out the pattern your nerve damage takes and showing the areas where your nerves are weak or non-responsive.
2.) Nerve Conduction Velocity Test (NCV): This test is noninvasive, but still can be uncomfortable. A handheld device is used to stimulate the nerves closest to the surface of your skin and uses patches attached to electrodes to measure the results and look for interruptions.
This test is particularly effective at showing nerve pain that's caused by sciatic problems, or any other problems caused by compression of nerve roots somewhere.
Be prepared to undergo the exams more than once, if necessary. It can take months for nerves to heal, if they're going to, and your attorney may want to document any changes if your lawsuit is nearing closure.
Subjective Documentation Of Nerve Injuries
One of the things that you should do if you are suffering from nerve pain is keep a pain diary. The purpose of this is actually multi-fold:
You can also use your pain journal as a log of what you are and are not able to do, because of the limitations caused by your pain.
This sort of documentation of your personal experiences with your pain can allow a jury or judge an intimate glimpse of how your nerve pain impacts your life on a daily basis.
Consult with your attorney, one like Greg S. Memovich, about any other steps that you can take to provide evidence that will help the judge or jury understand how your pain affects you. Recovering from your injuries, especially if nerve damage is involved, may never be fully possible. When it comes time for a jury or judge to consider the pain and suffering you've endured, and may yet face, you want to provide as much documentation as possible.
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