Question
I just had a disk replacement last year in October. I had a blood clot due to the surgery and was in ICU for about 9 days. My lungs were filled with clots and at the time they said that lung damage would not heal. Now I have been told that the lungs were fine and that my back has healed as much as it will. I felt better for awhile during my resting period, but now that I have returned to work my back is causing problems again. I just recently received a check from the insurance company for a 12% impairment rating. I did not cash it because I feel that this is very low compared to what my permanent damage really is. We have an employee in work who claims that they are 35% disabled and have never had an operation and is able to run our warehouse and lift way more than I can. I can not sit stand or walk to long without pain and now they want me to be evaluated for some kind of electric shock to my nerves. I have 2 questions. 1 do you think my rating is correct? 2 If the check is cashed am I locked into that rating without an appeal?

Answer
Hi, Mike.

Your questions about ratings and legalities are not within my area of expertise.

But I can say this about back pain:  most of the time, it is muscular in origin and does not reflect tissue damage.  That means it's fairly easy to clear up with the right method.

As to shock to nerves as treatment, that's, shall we say, "imaginitive."

Muscular actions result from the conditioning of the master-control center for the muscles -- the brain.  The brain is an organ of learning and conditioning, and because of that, it's conditioning can be improved, so that muscular actions normalize.

By the way, most disc problems result from long-term overcompression due to tight back muscles.

You may read more about back problems and their resolution at somatics.com/page4b.htm.

with regard,
Lawrence Gold