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Seems like an obviously simple question right? If you think so, you have obviously underestimated the length to which certain insurance companies will go to get out of paying a legitimate claim. One “expert” for hire I deposed recently testified that trauma, such as one might experience in even a catastrophic motor vehicle collision, can not cause a disc herniation absent a fractured vertebrae. This flies in the face of every previous deposition I have taken from medical doctors including Neurosurgeons, Orthopedic Surgeons and others. A typical disc disease is due to a change in the structure of the normal disc. While it is true that commonly disc disease comes as a result of aging and the degeneration that occurs within the disc, trauma can also cause a normal disc to herniate. Trauma can also cause an already herniated disc to worsen. The truth is that most people over the age of 35 have some form of degenerative disc disease, but that disc disease is asymptomatic (you don’t know you have it because it doesn’t hurt). Often when someone is involved in a car wreck they experience pain emanating from the area of the degenerated disc. X-Rays often don’t show anything if there aren’t any fractures. After a while, if rest and physical therapy don’t work, the injured victim will get an MRI that shows, guess what? Degenerative Disc Disease. The fact that the degenerative disc disease was asymptomatic prior to the accident, but symptomatic immediately thereafter is extremely important. But for the vehicle collision, the disc would not have worsened to the point of pain. Pain necessitates the subsequent treatment. Pain is also an item of damages for which the innocent injury victim is entitled to recover. The vast majority of medical doctors understand this and, notwithstanding the insurance defense “experts” paid for opinion testimony otherwise, will attribute the disc injury, or exacerbation of disc injury to the motor vehicle collision that results in the pain.
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