The nervous system receives information from the sense organs about your environment. It then controls the body to respond to it. For example, when your eyes spot a puddle on the sidewalk, your brain controls your legs and feet to jump over it.
In the vast experience of our personal injury lawyer in York, SC, handling cases of injuries like this, when you suffer nerve damage, you may experience changes in the sensations you experience. You may also lose some of your ability to control your body. Unfortunately, nerve damage will not heal, and you will experience these disabilities for the rest of your life.
What Is the Anatomy of the Nervous System?
Your nervous system consists of two parts:
The Central Nervous System
Your central nervous system generates and routes control signals to the body. This system includes the brain and spinal cord.
The brain serves as the nervous system’s control center. All thoughts arise in the brain. It stores all your memories, and it controls your body by generating nerve signals.
The spinal cord extends from the brain down your back. All nerve signals to and from your body below your neck must travel through the spinal cord. The only exception is signals traveling along the vagus nerve that directly connects your brain to your chest’s vital organs.
Doctors usually do not use the term “nerve damage” to refer to injuries to the central nervous system. Instead, injuries to the central nervous system are referred to as spinal cord injuries or brain injuries.
The Peripheral Nervous System
The peripheral nervous system includes all the parts of the nervous system outside of the central nervous system. The peripheral nervous system delivers signals from the central nervous system to the head and body.
This system includes:
Cranial Nerves
Cranial nerves run between your brain and head.
These nerves control:
- Facial expressions
- Chewing
- Speech
The vagus nerve that runs to the chest is a cranial nerve, and it controls vital organs like the heart and lungs.
Cranial nerves also carry sense perceptions from your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth to your brain.
Nerve Roots
As the spinal cord runs down the neck and back, it branches into a pair of nerve roots at each vertebra. A nerve root acts as the main connection between the spinal cord and a body region.
Peripheral Nerves
Nerve roots branch into peripheral nerves. The peripheral nerves connect nerve roots to the organs and muscles under their control. They also connect nerve roots to the nerve endings that pick up touch and pain sensations.
What Can Cause Nerve Damage?
Nerve damage can take a few forms, including:
Compression
Compression happens when something presses on a nerve. This pressure could come from a foreign object, such as an instrument or sponge, left inside a patient following a surgical procedure due to medical malpractice.
Compression can also result from another body part. For example, when you herniate a disc, the deformed disc can press on a nerve root. As a result, you could experience symptoms in an entire body region rather than a single body part.
Traction
Traction happens when a nerve gets stretched. Nerves carry signals through a combination of chemistry and electricity. When a nerve gets stretched, the signals traveling along the nerve can get dropped. This can lead to numbness when sensory signals get dropped or weakness when the nerve drops motor signals.
The nerve can also produce errant signals. As a result, you might experience pain even though you did not injure the body part that feels painful.
Laceration
When a nerve gets cut, it cannot carry a nerve signal. As a result, you will experience paralysis and sensory loss. The area affected by the nerve injury will depend on which nerve suffers an injury and how many nerves are injured.
Suppose your face is cut in a car accident when your cheek strikes the driver’s side window. If only a single nerve gets severed, you might only suffer minor paralysis. But if the glass slices through several nerves, you might lose control over an entire side of your face.
What Are Some Symptoms of Nerve Damage?
The symptoms of nerve damage depend on the nerves affected. Nerves come in three types:
Autonomic Nerves
Your nervous system controls voluntary responses that require conscious thought. It also controls involuntary responses that happen automatically.
Autonomic nerves control your body’s involuntary responses.
Damage to these nerves can cause symptoms such as:
- Difficulty breathing
- Irregular heartbeat
- Constipation
- High or low blood pressure
- Sexual dysfunction
Autonomic nerves also cooperate with motor nerves to control the bladder and bowel.
Motor Nerves
Motor nerves control your voluntary responses. These responses range from running to speaking.
When you suffer motor nerve damage, you may experience the following:
- Paralysis
- Muscle spasms
- Weakness
- Slurred speech
- Loss of dexterity
Fortunately, the brain has a property called neuroplasticity, which allows it to remap its functions. Sometimes, the brain can use other nerves to regain control over the paralyzed areas. However, if the brain cannot rewire itself, the symptoms of your nerve damage may remain with you for the rest of your life.
Sensory Nerves
Your sense organs send perceptions to the brain along sensory nerves. The optic nerve, for example, carries visual signals from the eye to the brain.
Symptoms of sensory nerve damage include:
- Loss of vision, hearing, smell, or taste
- Loss of balance
- Pain
- Numbness
- Tingling
A common symptom that accompanies nerve damage is radiating pain. Suppose that you damage a nerve in your shoulder. You might experience pain that radiates into your elbow and hand even though you did not injure them.
What Compensation Can You Seek for Nerve Damage?
Nerve damage will often cause permanent disabilities.
As a result, you may incur significant economic losses due to:
- Medical bills
- Physical therapy costs
- Occupational therapy expenses
- Lost income
- Diminished earning capacity
Also, your injuries might cause you significant pain, mental anguish, disabilities, and even disfigurement.
To recover compensation for these losses, you must prove that your nerve damage resulted from someone else’s intentional or negligent actions. Thus, you could recover compensation for nerve damage if you suffered a compressed nerve root in your back due to a slip and fall accident when you fell on your back.
Contact Elrod Pope Accident & Injury Attorneys at (803) 324-7574 for a free consultation to discuss your nerve damage and the compensation you may be entitled to pursue under South Carolina law.
