Your lumbar spine is your lower back, and when your lower back is injured, it can be an incredibly painful and debilitating. There’s no question that a lower back injury can keep you from being able to work. As per a recent University of Maryland study, more than a million back injuries are suffered at work every year. Most of those involve the lumbar spine. If you’ve suffered a lumbar spine injury while on the job, you’ll need to prove that it happened in the course and scope of your employment. That’s why you will want to give your employer notice of the injury right away. California workers’ compensation law requires that notice. Upon receiving notice of your injury, your employer should then give its workers’ compensation insurer notice of it. The insurer will then make its own decision on whether it will accept or deny your claim.

Symptoms
Some workers will suffer a lumbar spine injury as a result of a traumatic event like a slip-and-fall or overexertion when lifting or trying to move a heavy object. Others might suffer such an injury over time as a result of repetitive motion or physical stress on the lumbar spine. Lower back injury symptoms can be wide ranging. Some common symptoms follow:

• Pain across the hips and down the front of one of the thighs thighs.
• Pain in the buttocks and down the rear of the a leg to one or both feet.
• Muscle cramps on one side the lower back, buttocks or a leg.
• Weakness, numbness or tingling in a leg.

Pre-existing Conditions
Don’t let your employer or its insurer tell you that your job-related lower back injury was due to a pre-existing condition. You can still receive workers’ compensation benefits if that condition was aggravated at work.

Treatment
Lower back injury symptoms can be caused by anything from a strain or sprain to a bulging or herniated disc with nerve root impingement. Many lower back injuries are treated conservatively with physical therapy or even chiropractic care. At other times, lower back injuries must be treated surgically. Permanent implantation of hardware and transplantation of bone over the site of the hardware isn’t at all unusual.

Contact a Sacramento Workers’ Compensation Attorney

If you suffered a lumbar spine injury during the course of your employment, and you received medical treatment for it and missed a significant amount of time from work because of it, you’re probably eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. You may not be treated fairly by your employer or its workers’ compensation insurer, and you’re probably going to need experienced and effective legal help. Given the way that California workers’ compensation law has evolved, it now seems to favor the employer more than the injured employee. That’s why obtaining workers’ compensation benefits today is even more complicated than it was in the past.

We know how much you depend on your paycheck. That’s why workers’ compensation benefits are so important for you when you can’t work.