Herniated Cervical Disc Injuries

Herniated Cervical Disc Attorneys

A herniated cervical disc is among the injuries seen frequently by personal injury attorneys Evans Georgia and practicing statewide in Georgia. A herniated cervical disc might come from any car accident, including an automobile or car wreck or a truck, tractor trailer, semi, or big rig accident.

The spine is an arrangement of bones called vertebra. Nerves extend out from the spinal cord, which is in the middle of the spine, to all parts of the body. The vertebra are divided by shock absorbers called intervertebral discs. The discs are commonly compared to a jelly donut. The external layer (the “bread” of the donut) is the annulus fibrosus, a durable tissue consisting of numerous layers of fibrocartilage. This layer consists of the nucleus pulposus (the” jelly” of the donut) and disperses pressure equally throughout the disc.

There are normally 23 discs in the your spine: 6 in the neck (cervical region), 12 in the mid back (thoracic region), and 5 in the lower back (lumbar region). They are called by numbers and letters according to area. The disc in between the 6th and 5th cervical vertabrae is called “C5-6.”.

The bread of the donut becomes weak and cracks and the jelly starts to stick out when there is an injury to the disc. There might be a bulge in the disc which it pinches nerves causing pain, numbness or tingling. When the jelly leaks out of the donut, it is called a herniation. Commonly a disc herniation causes disabling pain or loss of bodily function.

As lots of people age, annulus fibrosus gets weaker with age and starts to crack, and the nucleus pulposus starts to dry out, which restricts its ability to absorb shock. These age related changes might not cause any kind of signs and symptoms for decades until some event such as a car or truck crash causes trauma that exacerbates or exacerbates the degenerative condition.

Since a person with age related deterioration might be just fine until trauma causes serious pain, numbness, tingling or loss of bodily functions, in insurance claims and injury litigation we normally deal with such injuries as aggravations of pre-existing conditions. The few exceptions are when post-accident xrays, CT scans and MRI photos reveal a fresh fracture of a vertebra. We welcome pre-existing conditions that were formerly asymptomatic and make them part of the client’s case.

We commonly see clients who have had cervical disc herniation injuries due to car or truck accidents. Commonly, orthopedic surgeons and neurosurgeons recommend conservative treatment with physical therapy a sequence of injections in the spine. They will review with the patient surgical options if symptoms still continue. For cervical (neck) injuries, we usually see anterior cervical fusion surgery in which an incision is made in the front of the neck, the damaged disc is removed, replaced with bone tissue (from the patient’s own hip or donor bone tissue), and the vertebra fastened with a metal plate and screws. Occasionally a more recent version of flexible artificial disc is used. While results can vary, we normally learn through clients that the surgical treatment significantly improves their quality of life and ability to participate in normal tasks without substantial pain.

Call the law offices of Fleming and Nelson  today at 706-434-8770 if you have suffered a herniated cervical disc injury in Evans Georgia.