Tell your doctors what is wrong with you

It is extremely important that you as the patient discuss all of your injuries with your doctors. Unless the doctors know about your injuries and symptoms, you will not be properly treated and your medical records may be inadequate to support your compensation claim. Many times a traumatic accident will cause a person to have multiple injuries. Months later, the one that did not hurt as much on day one will be the one that the worker carries with them the rest of their life. For instance, a client fell from a high scaffold and suffered broken ribs, a blow to the head, and aches and pains up and down her body. The doctors and the family were so focused on the very painful rib fracutres and possible closed head injury that no one really said much about her spine. After her ribs healed and she was cleared of any concerns about a closed head injury, her low back problems persisted. Of course the defense argued to the judge that she did not complain about her back when she came in. They must have magically appeared form nowhere while she was convalescing. Those low back entries only appeared later in the chart. Fortunately, she did tell her providers that she really hurt head to toe and the low back just never did heal up like the rest. They believed her but it would have been easy for the doctors to give no opinion since it just was not mentioned in the chart. We were successful on that case and it was a lesson in clients and their health histories. Tell the providers about all symptoms. The law sometimes punishes the stoic and a thorough discussion of what is wrong is key to good care and fairness in the process.