Alabama Personal Injury Attorney
Lower Back & Radiating Pain After a Low Impact MVA
Following motor vehicle accidents where vehicles sustain only light damage, our clients often experience severe low back pain, with radiation into the buttock, as well as some generalized stiffness and ache in the neck and shoulders, and headaches.
While many of these symptoms resolve over a few weeks, continued complaints of increasing low back discomfort accompanied by radiation into the hip and part way down the right thigh are often reported. This can lead to a diagnosed of sciatica. MRIs of adult spines often reveal early degenerative disc. By definition, this type of finding is related to the aging process and not to a trauma. Disc herniations, however, should be analyzed differently. Contact an Alabama personal injury lawyer if you have suffered a severe injury in an accident.
The following is a useful summary of the segmental effects of disc herniations causing nerve root compression at various levels in the lumbar spine:
- An L3/L4 disc space herniation usually causes nerve root compression of the L4 nerve root. The L4 nerve root tends to affect the knee (patellar) reflex, sensation on the medial of the leg and weakness of tibialis anterior (foot inversion).
- An L4/L5 disc space herniation usually causes nerve root compression of the L5 nerve root. The L5 nerve root tends to affect sensation on the lateral side of the leg and the dorsum of the foot, and weakness of the great toe extensor (extensor hallucis longus), but does not affect any reflex.
- An L5/S1 disc space herniation usually causes nerve root compression of the S1 nerve root. The Si nerve root tends to affect the ankle (Achilles) reflex, sensation on the lateral side of the foot, and cause weakness of peroneus longus and brevis (foot eversion).
Lower back injury and lasting pain can be difficult to diagnose especially when MRI and other diagnostic tools do not correlate with a victim's pain symptoms.
If you have suffered a back injury in an accident or on the job, contact a Mobile Personal Injury Attorney at McAleer Law for aggressive legal representation.