AboutDoctor Settlement Expertise 27 years of front line plaintiff`s trial lawyer experience in PERSONAL INJURY INSURANCE CLAIMS. Along with other attorneys and insurance adjusters, we have created a website to help injured people settle their own personal injury claims. With the help from feedback from hundreds of satisfied members, www.settlementcentral.com has become THE AUTHORITY for Internet personal injury insurance claim settlements. I am humbled and honored if people can benefit from my experience and current volunteer work in helping injured people. I hope I can explain things in a manner that is useful for the questioner. If not, do not hesitate to e-mail me and I will take a second shot at it! Best Wishes for your physical and financial recovery.
Experience
Life Experience: 27 years of front line plaintiff's trial lawyer experience
Organizations: American Trial Lawyers Association (AAJ)
Washington State Trial Lawyers Association
Awards and Honors:
I am humbled and honored everytime I am selected to help injured people. And when people give feedback that they have benefited from my experience and current volunteer efforts, then that is a double honor and award for me.
Question Please help, In January I will be sixty years old and I fell stepping from a doorway of a newly constructed addition to a house. Belonging to the man I was engaged to, before this changed everything and destroyed my life. Due to the nonexistent porch, there were several concert bricks placed to assist the steep step downward from the door well to a temporary rod iron stairway. As I stepped on to the brick, it rocked making this step unstable causing the loss of balance. With out having the guard railing for protection, I fell to the side completely off the porch area of the step approximately 5’ drop to the ground headfirst. Resolving in a concussion that now, six months later still experiencing loss of concentration, blurred vision, discolored scaring after the scabbing on my forehead, nose going into my lip that hasn’t diminished. Both top front teeth went through my top lip. A deeper cut at the side of my eye has left a sever difference in shape and puffiness, six months later under my left eye. I left the emergency room in a neck brace, still experiencing stiffness, unbearable numbness in my hands that wakes me at night needing to stand, a dislocated bone in my left foot, three broken bones in my wrist, arm and hand. A prior injury to my static never where I occasionally experienced flare-ups, that is now continuous pain making it unbearable to function normally and unable to work. I am using pain pills and muscle relaters on a daily basis that don’t really help. Monetarily stressed, crying continuously I am now on Zolof and have left me feeling afraid I am going to lose everything I ever worked for my whole life. I just want it this behind me and don't know what to ask for settlement. Please help! Thank you Janet
Answer Hi Janet,
I am terribly sorry about your fall and the horrible consequences of it. You are in serious need of FOUR kinds of professional help, and you need to get that help NOW.
You need a neuropsychologist to test you for brain injury and to treat you;
You need a dentist who specializes in Temporomandibular Joint Syndrome (TMJ);
You need a doctor who can help treat your bodily injuries; AND
YOU NEED A GOOD PERSONAL INJURY TRIAL ATTORNEY.
I do not know what kind of doctor has been treating you to date, but you NEED to get the referrals I mentioned above. Use your own health insurance, or rely upon your trial attorney to make arrangements for an irrevocable lien so you can get the proper treatments. Your trial attorney will be able to make good referrals and, in the event you have no insurance, she can also arrange for payment outside of insurance via lien on your award.
If you were my client, I would have already set you up with the best experts in the fields that you need. Your present general practice doctor has apparently done NONE of that, so you need to see an attorney ASAP and let her fix up the referral process and the payment via lien process. GET THE PROPER TREATMENTS ASAP.
First off, let's not pretend that this is anything that you should spend one more day on in self-representation. Your claim is WAY AND BEYOND TOO SERIOUS TO HANDLE ON YOUR OWN. That statement might surprise some since self help personal injury insurance claims Dr. Settlement teaches accident injury victims. But we also tell our visitors that many cases need to be handled only by an attorney, and yours is one of those.
First off, let's look at liability. From your description, there is no question of liability in this claim. And, unless you did something wrong yourself, I have a hard time seeing how you were negligent. Hence, this is a GOOD CLAIM for an attorney to arrange for a loan if you truly need it.
NEW TOPICS: BRAIN INJURIES AND TMJ
How hard did you hit your head? It sounds like a pretty hard whack. So, let’s first address that topic of the most significant potential injury, your traumatic brain injury. Research that term, and especially post concussive syndrome and you will see some of the symptoms of that condition. My bet is that you DO HAVE A MODERATE BRAIN INJURY. It is untreated for two reasons.
First off, you most likely denied any loss of consciousness, right? Second, if there is no loss of consciousness and no complaints of the symptoms of brain injury, most doctors who are called upon to treat injuries will not make referrals to have the patient tested for brain injury.
Let’s first examine what is a concussion and what is a loss of consciousness. You DID HAVE A CONCUSSION, that much is for sure, since you hit your head. So traumatic brain injury is in play in your claim since you suffered a brain concussion.
Post-concussion syndrome, also known as post concussive syndrome or PCS, is a set of symptoms that a person may experience for weeks, months, or even years after a concussion, a mild form of traumatic brain injury. As many as 50% of patients who have experienced concussion have PCS, and some sources say as many as 90% of patients experience post concussion symptoms. People who have had concussions may experience physical, mental, or emotional symptoms. Symptoms can appear immediately or weeks to months after the initial injury.
Physical symptoms can include:
• headache
• dizziness
• impaired balance
• nausea and/or vomiting
• fatigue or sleepiness
• inability to sleep
• decreased libido
• sensitivity to noise or light
• ringing in the ears
• double or blurred vision
• decreased sense of taste, smell, or hearing
Emotional symptoms may include:
• irritability
• anxiety
• restlessness
• depression
• lack of emotion
• emotional lability or mood swings
• lack of ability to tolerate stress or alcohol
• aggression
Cognitive or mental symptoms can include:
• amnesia or difficulty remembering things
• confusion or impaired cognition
• impaired judgment
• slowed cognitive processing
• difficulty with abstract thinking
• difficulty concentrating
• decrease in work performance
• decrease in social skills
LOSS OF CONSCIOUSNESS—not essential to diagnosis of post concussive syndrome, but sometimes the length of time unconscious will be used to judge the degree of the brain injury.
The patient is typically the primary source who is asked the most significant question: Did you lose consciousness as a result of your injury? Most of my clients who actually later recalled that they did not remember moments just after being struck in the head, AT FIRST DENIED ANY LOSS OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE POLICE AND TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM.
WHY? First, most people equate loss of consciousness with being unconscious for some time. But in fact, “loss of consciousness” means loss of conscious awareness. Hence, loss of consciousness can range from being briefly dazed to several days of coma. In fact, in order for a brain injury victim to answer such a question, they would have to undergo extensive examination recollecting past events. Any change in mental state can be significant in understanding a patient's condition and if loss of memory (amnesia) occurred immediately before or after the trauma.
When you struck your head on something, probably there was a brief loss of consciousness. Even if you never before reported it, now is the time to correct your records with a letter to your doctor explaining that you DID have a brief loss of consciousness.
How do you correct records with the medical providers and the insurance adjusters? http://www.settlementcentral.com/page7004.htm Letters to insurance claim adjuster. While this is designed for self help claims, your attorney could write the same letter, even at this late date. Better now than at trial.
This page talks about how to confirm conversations with the insurance adjuster http://www.settlementcentral.com/page0460.htm with loss of consciousness notify the insurance adjuster as soon as you recall it. BUT in this case, I would wait a bit until you hire an attorney to let her help with the decision of HOW to provide that update information to the adjuster.
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TMJ—temporomandibular joint syndrome: possible source for YOUR HEADACHES.
This is another term I want you to research. When an accident victim strikes her head, there is a good possibility that the disc in the condyle, or jaw joint disc, can be displaced. One of the consequences of jaw joint displacement is headaches. All too often in my practice, the doctors treated headaches as having originated from cervical problems, when in fact, they were due to a TMJ. http://www.lectlaw.com/med/med04.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporomandibular_joint_disorder http://www.tmjdoctorofmaryland.com/
There are two at-home ways to see if your jaw joint is moving. First, find the spot in front of the little lobes on the middle of your ears. These are called “tragus”: http://www.infovisual.info/03/048_en.html
Now, put your fingers just in front of the tragus and over the jaw joint and open and close your mouth. If the disc is far out of place, you will feel a click. Better is for someone to stand behind you as you are seated and perform the same test. That person can feel the click if your jaw joint disc is far out of place.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT REFERRALS: If you feel that you do have any of these symptoms and they are of some significance, I WOULD INSIST UPON TREATMENT for them ASAP. It is best to get your general practitioner to refer you, but you can self-refer if you have to. Your attorney can also be a source of information on good specialists. Here is what you would need: a neuropsychologist to test and to treat the mild brain injury. That is where the big mental help will come from, and of course that is where the BIG INSURANCE SETTLEMENT DOLLARS come from also.
As for the TMJ, a dentist who specializes in that field would be a lot better than an ordinary dentist. The TMJ specialist is adept at diagnosis and treatment, and of course, at making records that will help in making a good insurance settlement.
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Finding a good attorney can be difficult, but here is one tip: make sure that the attorney is a member of her state trial lawyers association http://www.settlementcentral.com/links.php
AND you MUST HAVE an attorney who has EXPERIENCE on brain injury and TMJ cases. Insist upon that information being furnished over the phone before you EVER go in for an appointment.
If you wish, I can try to find such an attorney in the area where you live, and that is done by www.SettlementCentral.Com as a public service to injured persons. We do not bill either you or the attorney for the referral, but we do it just to help those who are seriously injured. If you wish my help, then go to my site and in the top right click the "contact us" button. Mention that we met on allexperts.com and that you are the premises liability victim who needs an attorney. I will get back to you and get more information on the claim and your treatment and current condition. Then I will use my American Association for Justice membership to find you three good attorneys that you can choose from.
I hope that you do follow through as I am suggesting, Janet, because you DO need professional help as I suggested above, and there are a lot of competent doctors, attorneys, and dentists to choose from.
Best wishes for a smooth and quick recovery from your many injuries.
Dr. Settlement, J.D. (Juris Doctor)
Www.SettlementCentral.Com
