Did you suffer a traumatic amputation in a motorcycle accident?
Did you suffer a traumatic amputation in a motorcycle accident?
If you are like many other riders here in Baton Rouge, riding a motorcycle provides you with a sense of freedom you can’t get anywhere else. Riding may also make up a portion of your social life. On the more practical side, it gives you a reliable source of transportation with lower costs for gas and more.
With all of the benefits you receive from riding, the downsides of motorcycle riding may have come as a surprise, crashing into your life — literally. Because your motorcycle didn’t provide you with the same protections as a passenger vehicle, your injuries may have been quite severe. Perhaps you suffered a traumatic amputation and now have to deal with the numerous changes to your life that come with such an injury.
Do you experience residual limb pain?
One of the possible side effects of an amputation is residual limb pain. As the name implies, this means that you experience pain in the remaining portion of the limb you lost. This type of pain is not the same as post-operative pain, which usually resolves in time. You can manage it with medication and other methods. When it comes to residual limb pain, you must search for another cause and treatment, and you and your doctor may discover it stems from one or more of the following issues:
Nerves can get “trapped” in the scar tissue. Your doctor may advise you to massage the limb and surgical site in order to help prevent this from happening.
You could develop a neuroma, which is a bundle of nerves that develop under the skin and cause pain, especially if it happens where your prosthesis meets the remaining limb. Both pharmaceutical and other treatments can help with this.
If for some reason your doctor fails to properly trim down the bone at the amputation site, this could easily be the source of your pain. You will probably need to undergo another surgical procedure to correct the problem.
Excess bone could form at the site of the amputation, which doctors refer to as a bone spur. You might need surgery to remove that excess bone in order to relieve your pain and help your prosthesis fit more comfortably.
Perhaps you suffer from an underlying disease such as diabetes and/or diabetic neuropathy. Controlling these or other conditions could help with residual limb pain.
As you can see, in most cases, the type of pain does have some treatment that will help alleviate it. Even so, it constitutes another complication you must deal with as you adjust to life after the loss of a limb. Moreover, it adds more to the cost of your medical care now and in the future, which may cause you a great deal of frustration and concern. If another individual’s negligence or recklessness caused your injury, you may be able to pursue much-needed compensation.
