Can A Car Accident Cause Me To Develop Spondylosis In My Spine?

Spondylosis is a back condition involving degeneration of the spine. Because it is a gradual degeneration, it is not directly caused by the impact of a car accident. However, a person with spondylosis is at much higher risk for other painful back injuries during an accident—and the accident may make the spondylosis itself much more painful. In fact, many patients never even realize they have spondylosis until it gets aggravated by an accident.

What is Spondylosis?

Spondylosis refers to several kinds of spinal degeneration, with the most common being osteoarthritis of the spine and disk desiccation.

Osteroarthritis occurs when the cartilage “discs” that act as cushions between the vertebrae start to wear out and become harder and more brittle. This normally effects people over the age of 50.
Disc Dissection causes the same result, but this degenerative disc disease is caused by dehydration of your discs. As you age, the discs between the stacked bones of the vertebrae begin to dehydrate or slowly lose their fluid.

On its own, spondylosis may or may not be painful, clients can have this condition their entire lives and never become aware of it. However, any moderately strong to forceful impact caused by a car accident can cause serious harm to the already impacted area. This often includes clients developing chronic back pain.

If full, our Houston car accident clients with spondylosis often develop chronic pain syndrome or serious bulges or disk herniation that require long-term care or surgical intervention after being involved in motor vehicle accidents.

What Are All The Symptoms of Spondylosis

Our clients often feel a sharp or constant pain in your back and neck, though the extent of symptoms depends on where the weak disk is and other changes it has caused.

Common signs include pain that:

Lower back, buttocks, or upper thighs
Frequent nagging pains across months
Increased pain while sitting or laying down
Feels worse when you bend, lift, or twist
Relief when altering positions

In some cases, degenerative disk disease can lead to numbness and tingling in your arms and legs. It can also cause your leg muscles to become weak. This means the damaged disks may be affecting the nerves near your spine.

How Is It Spondylosis Treated?

Unless emergency surgery is needed, doctors often set patients on minimally invasive treatment plans in hopes that these initial measures will slow the pain and discomfort caused by the spinal condition.

Treatment for Spondylosis includes:

Medication. Pain relievers like aspirin and ibuprofen can help fight inflammation and passively slow the disk conditions ability to interrupt your daily activities by lessening swelling around the impacted area. Swollen muscles often cause pressure to build around nerves trigger radiation pains throughout the area when impacted.
Physical therapy. Specified movements allow the muscles in your neck and back stronger to become stronger and more flexible, which supports the spine and decreases its negative maneuverability. In certain cases physical therapy creates long-lasting restoration.
Steroid shots. Such injections, normally called discectomy ease pain, swelling, and inflammation in a more instantaneous manner. Your doctor may suggest you get a shot in the epidural space in your back, a fluid-filled area around the spinal cord, or get one in your nerve or muscle. The step of using ESI injection is often done as a last attempt to avoid providing a surgical determination to restore the area.
Surgery: If all other treatments proves unhelpful, a surgeon may recommend surgery. One procedure, called a discectomy, removes the injured part of the disk. This helps take pressure off your nerves.

In some cases, your doctor might recommend removed of a disk and put an artificial one in. If you have a severe problem, your doctor might fuse the bones in your spine to create a stronger area of the back where damage has been done.

Our Houston Car Accident Team Can Help

Spondylosis car accident claims are complex and insurance companies will fight them. Don’t face them alone. Let us give you a FREE consultation to get you the answers you need—and help you get paid. Call us at (713)800-6676 or fill out the form to the right to get your free consultation today.