You may have suffered an injury to your back on a California worksite, yet you do not feel any resulting pain. Perhaps you feel you got off lucky, but you should not rest easy just yet. You might decide against reporting a workplace incident or filing a workers’ compensation claim only to experience pain sometime afterwards, but by then you could miss out on receiving compensation. It is important to remember that not all workplace back injuries result in immediate pain.
According to the Back Pain Authority website, some back pain does not begin at once following the infliction of the injury. Sometimes the pain may commence a few hours after the injury. In other instances an injury victim may feel pain days or possibly weeks following a workplace injury. The causes of delayed back pain can be physical or psychological, although it is more likely that psychological causes will explain back pain delayed by longer periods of time.
There are many reasons why back pain may strike after a delayed period following the injury. You may experience a dose of adrenaline directly after the injury occurs. Adrenaline is a natural way for the human body to block pain and can account for why you do not feel pain for the first few hours after an incident. Sometime physical activity after the injury may exacerbate the injury or cause additional injury.
Other injuries actually are incomplete from the time they are sustained. It may take a period of time for the injury to complete, at which time you would start feeling the resulting pain. Some injuries may be inflammatory in nature, and can develop as the afflicted area retains fluids or suffers issues with proper circulation. While there are many reasons for delayed pain to occur, the fact that you do not feel pain in the immediate aftermath of an injury does not mean you are in the clear.
This article is intended to inform the reader about workplace injuries and is not to be taken as legal advice.
