Get The Right Payout In Texas To Help With Secondary Conditions
On behalf of Lovett Law Firm posted in Spinal Cord Injuries on Tuesday, February 17, 2015.
You’ve suffered a spinal cord injury and received an offer moderate insurance payout. You could take your case to court over the sum, but is it worth it? To understand how much money you could need as you learn to deal with paralysis, you need to know about the complications and difficulties you may face. One of those complications is called autonomic dysreflexia, and it could affect you at almost any time following your accident. It’s a life-threatening condition and something you’ll have to look out for as you learn to live with your disability.
This condition affects people with spinal cord injuries that affect them at or above the T6 level. It’s also possible for those with T7 or T8 injuries to suffer this complication. So, what is autonomic dysreflexia? It’s a problem caused by an irritant that is occurring below the point of paralysis. So, something like a urinary tract infection could trigger this condition.
Autonomic dysreflexia is the over-activity of the autonomic nervous system. This system controls your heart rate, breathing and digestion, to name a few parts of the body it works with. When a noxious stimulus sends a nerve impulse to the autonomic nervous system from below the point of paralysis, the stimuli travels until it’s blocked by the point of injury. At that point, the sympathetic nervous system is activated, resulting in the narrowing of blood vessels. This raises your blood pressure and begins to confuse the body, resulting in various issues like a slowed heart rate or dilated blood vessels in the upper body.
This condition is something you may have to work through, so taking it and other secondary issues into consideration is important when you’re deciding on a settlement. Your care is going to be ongoing, so make sure you get what you deserve.
Source: Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, “Autonomic Dysreflexia” accessed Feb. 17, 2015