Archive for the ‘ Pain ’ Category

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8
Mar

Goldsboro Truck Driver Faces Long Road To Recovery After Crash

March 8, 2012

Recovering from an injury suffered in an accident can be a long process. Take, for instance, the story of a truck driver from Goldsboro, North Carolina, that was recently highlighted by WRAL News. The truck driver was involved in an accident on October 29, 2009, along I-95 near Godwin in Cumberland County.

Reports say that the trucker was heading north when he swerved to avoid a stationary car. The driver of the stopped car was pushing a disabled vehicle off the road. While swerving, the truck driver hit the trailer of another 18-wheeler and ricocheted back into the guardrail of the median. The truck burst into flames, trapping the truck driver inside.

A passing southbound motorist who witnessed the crash jumped into action, running to the burning truck and working to free the trapped driver. He was eventually able to pull the man to safety.

The driver spent the next two months in a coma at a local hospital after suffering third-degree burns to more than 40% of his body, and he now requires daily physical therapy. He says that he will never be able to drive a truck again, but is thankful to be alive.

The Raleigh Truck Accident Attorneys at HensonFuerst Injury Lawyers would like to wish the truck driver a speedy and successful recovery after this terrible accident. His positive attitude toward his recovery is an inspiration to others.

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5
Jan

More Americans Die From Drug Overdose Than From Car Crashes

January 5, 2012

Right now in the United States, more people die from drug overdoses than from car accidents, according to new research released last month. According to WECT 6 News, the study concluded that the cause of the surge in fatal overdoses could be linked to the increased use of drugs that have potential for abuse.

The study was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over a 30-year time period. Over the span of three decades, researchers saw an increase of six times as many drug poisoning deaths. In 1980, there were roughly 6,000 deaths associated with drug poisonings. By 2008, that number had capped out at 36,500. That same year, nine out of ten poisoning deaths were drug related, with 77 percent of them being unintentional.

These findings correlate with earlier research that showed the number one type of drug abused in the United States today are legal pharmaceuticals.

A CDC health scientist involved with the study, Dr. Chris Jones, stated that the number of prescriptions that doctors are willing to write to patients today is a major contributing factor to the problem. “Between 1999 and 2010, the sales of these drugs increased fourfold.” he added.

The Raleigh drug injury lawyers with HensonFuerst are an experienced team of attorneys dedicated to helping victims who have been injured at no fault of their own by a prescription drug. If you or someone you know has experienced a similar scenario, call us today to discuss your case.

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4
Oct

Hip Replacements Fail, Sometimes Without Symptoms

Last year, DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of Johnson & Johnson, recalled two of their hip replacement systems due to a higher-than-usual failure rate, causing patients to have to have second surgeries to replace the replacement.

Then, in May 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered all producers of “metal-on-metal” hip replacements to study the implants to make sure patients remain as safe as possible. That means that DePuy may not be the only potentially dangerous brand of hip replacement. Other brands included in the FDA’s order are Zimmer, Stryker, Biomet, and Wright Medical.

Now, according to a new article in The New York Times, the problems reported to date may be just the tip of the injury iceberg. And many people who have hip replacements may not even be aware that their bodies are in the midst of developing serious, potentially permanent damage.

BACKGROUND

Hips are made of two parts: A round, concave socket on the lower part of the pelvis; and a ball-shaped protrusion of bone at the end of the femur (thigh bone) that fits perfectly into the socket. This ball-and-socket joint allows the leg to extend forward, backward, sideways, and around in a circle in fluid motion.

A hip replacement, therefore, also has two parts:  Ball and socket. The most common implants are made of metal and plastic, but some—such as those involved in the recall—are known as metal-on-metal, in which a metal ball rotates in a metal socket. According to The New York Times:

More than a decade ago, some researchers had warned that the hips shed tiny pieces of metallic debris that posed potential health threats to patients. But those warnings were not heeded, and now doctors and patients face a growing public health problem as one of the country’s biggest medical device failures unfolds.

The metallic debris triggers the body to release scavenger cells to try to get rid of the particles, but they end up only making the problem worse: A chemical reaction converts the metal particles into biologically active metallic ions. In some patients, this causes a cascade of problems in the body that can end up causing permanent muscle and tissue damage.

A COMPLEX PHENOMENON

Metal-on-metal hip replacement devices don’t always cause health problems, and when they do, the path to diagnosis isn’t clear or straightforward. Some patients have severe symptoms that cause them to seek medical care, but sometimes people with severe damage don’t experience pain at all. Sometimes the metallic ions can be picked up in blood work, but sometimes standard test for the ions are negative even though they exist.

For example, Cyndi Lafuente, a senior adviser at the Internal Revenue Service, learned last year that the model of artificial hip she got in 2007 was being recalled by its manufacturer, the DePuy division of Johnson & Johnson, because of its high early failure rate. Ms. Lafuente said she contacted her surgeon, who ordered a blood test and diagnostic scans, which came back with normal results. Still concerned, she contacted a British researcher, Dr. David Langton, who had helped sound the alarm about the recalled model.

In January, she met again with her orthopedist, armed with information from that talk and other research. The physician suggested that they run an added test. It showed very high metal levels, she said.

Patients are being put in the position of having to take an active role in seeking answers about their metal-on-metal hip replacements. Those who don’t could be risking permanent damage.

WHAT TO DO

If you already know that you received one of the recalled DePuy hip replacement systems or any metal-on-metal hip replacement, we recommend two things:

1. Schedule a follow-up appointment with your surgeon, even if you’re not currently having symptoms. It is possible that you could have early signs of failure before you recognize the pain. Your doctor will be able to evaluate how your hip is functioning and whether the recalled implant is in need of replacement.

In that visit, your orthopaedic surgeon may also want do a blood test that looks at the level of microscopic metal particles around your hip. Metal particles are a sign that recalled implant has failed. If the blood test indicates a high level of these particles, your surgeon may want to do a second blood test three months later. These levels may be high even if you are not experiencing any symptoms, so this blood testing is very important.

2. Call HensonFuerst Attorneys for important information about your rights. If you or someone you care about received one of these defective joint replacement components, we would like to speak with you right away.  You may have a legal case and be eligible to collect compensation for the injury caused by this faulty medical device.

What’s most important: DO NOT contact DePuy or other manufacturer, or SIGN ANY RELEASES OF YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS TO DePuy or JOHNSON & JOHNSON or any other manufacturer before you talk with a lawyer. On DePuy’s website, they ask patients to register with them and receive a claim number. DO NOT DO THIS YOURSELF. Let a lawyer handle everything. Big corporations look out for their own financial interests, not the interests of people who may have been harmed. If Johnson & Johnson was interested in helping patients, they would not have allowed the device to continue to be sold even after they knew it was causing serious problems.

At HensonFuerst, your health is our top priority. We dedicate ourselves to protecting individuals from the greed and callousness of large corporations. Let us work for you. Someone is available to take your call 24 hours/day, every day of the year at 1-800-4-LAWMED (1-800-452-9633). Or, visit our website at www.lawmed.com for more information. You can also fill out a free online consultation form for an immediate evaluation of your case.

Life doesn’t wait, and neither should you. If you have questions, HensonFuerst has answers.

RESOURCES

To read the full article in The New York Times, click here:  Remedy Is Elusive as Metallic Hips Fail at a Fast Rate

To read our previous blogs about metal-on-metal hip replacement devices, click here:

Hip Replacements to Be Evaluated for Safety

—or here:

Hip Implant Complaints Surge

To watch our video about the DePuy hip replacement device recall, click here:  HensonFuerst video about DePuy recall

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12
Sep

Strong Cautions on Bone-Building Drugs

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[photo from The New York Times

About 4 million women in the United States—more than 10 percent of women over age 50—take medications called bisphosphonates as a treatment for osteoporosis or osteopenia (pre-osteoporosis). Unfortunately, many of those women may not have been informed about the risks of these so-called bone-building drugs. There are serious risks associated with these medications…risks that aren’t always adequately explained when the drugs are prescribed.

Bones are not static; they are made of living cells, and like all other cells in the body, they are constantly dying and being reformed. With bone, the process is called remodeling. Old cells are resorbed—they leave the bone and are absorbed by the body. One of the earliest bisphosphonate medications was used to treat Paget’s disease, a condition in which bone resorption happens faster than formation of new bone cells. The drug slowed the resorption of bone.

In his book Worried Sick, Dr. Nortin M. Hadler, professor of medicine and microbiology/immunology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, noted that in high doses or during prolonged treatment bisphosphonate medications can actually cause–rather than thwart–osteopenia. He writes:

In fact, one has to be wary of all bisphosphonates as double-edged swords. For example, there was one agent that was withdrawn from the market because leukemia was a side effect.

Other serious side effects that have been documented are:

  • Osteonecrosis (bone death) of the jaw. This painful side effect is the total destruction of bone tissue in the jaw. This degenerative condition involves soft-tissue swelling in the mouth, infection, loosening of the teeth, drainage, and exposed bone. It is often the result of blood not properly reaching the bone.
  • Fractures of the hip and/or the femur (the long bone of the thigh). These fractures have occurred with no apparent trauma in patients taking bisphosphonates. They can occur after tripping (not falling) over a rug, or from simply walking down stairs. Dr. Kenneth Egol, professor of orthopedic surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center, said these bone fracture patients had X-ray results that looked like those of car accident victims.

FDA Urges Stronger Cautions

In November, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will issue a revised label for bone-building medications, including Fosamax, Actonel, and Boniva. It is expected that there will be stronger cautionary language on the product labels. According to an article in The New York Times, the FDA’s safety review was:

…prompted by concerns over a relatively small number of long-term users who had suffered unusual thigh fractures or a serious jaw disease. The benefits of the drugs have only been proven for three to five years, not longer, F.D.A. staff members said, warning about links to those rare conditions after longer use….

The committee also called for more study of the overall effectiveness of the drugs in their desired goal of preventing fractures. And the advisers recommended that the F.D.A. take a close look at why the drugs are prescribed as preventive medicine for women who do not even have osteoporosis.

There is the possibility that the FDA might recommend a “drug holiday” for some women, with the hope that it might prevent the effects that happen with long-term use.

“In my opinion, after five years in most cases it ought to be stopped,” [Dr. Susan M. Ott, an associate medical professor and bone specialist at the University of Washington] said in an interview. She prescribes the drugs for shorter periods, but said evidence shows growing risks and no proven benefits after five years.

“The longest anybody could have taken this drug is 15 years now,” Dr. Ott said. “It’s an ongoing experiment, and there are a few million women in the country who are participating in it. I keep wanting to say, ‘You’re all guinea pigs after five years because that’s when the studies stopped.’ ”

Right now, Merck, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures Fosamx, is facing more than 1,600 lawsuits over serious bone and jaw injuries. A woman in Florida was awarded $8 million by a jury after Fosamax destroyed her jaw and caused significant pain. The jury concluded that Fosamax was “unreasonably dangerous due to defective design, and that its defective design was a legal cause of Mrs. Boles’ injury.”

WHAT TO DO

Most importantly, do not discontinue taking any medications without first consulting your physician. If you have concerns about the side effects of taking bisphosphonate drugs, talk with your doctor. Seek immediate care if you are taking these drugs and experience pain in your thigh—this symptom has been a precursor to fracture in some women.

If you have experienced fractures, osteonecrosis of the jaw, or other serious side effect after taking Fosamax, Actonel, Boniva, or other bisphosphonate medications, and you want to explore your legal options, feel free to contact one of our experienced drug injury lawyers. Someone is available to take your call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Contact us by phone at 1-800-4-LAWMED, or fill out an online request on our website http://www.lawmed.com. The initial consultation is free. We will put our considerable resources behind all cases in which pharmaceutical drugs have harmed innocent victims.

If you have questions, HensonFuerst has answers.

RESOURCES

To read the full article in The New York Times, click there:  Stronger Cautions Backed on Bone Drugs for Women

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23
Aug

Hip Implant Complaints Surge

On August 24, 2010, DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of Johnson & Johnson, sent a letter to doctors announcing a recall of two of their hip replacement systems, the ASR XL Acetabular System, and the ASR Hip Resurfacing System. Why? Because they have a higher-than-usual failure rates, causing people to have to have second surgeries to replace the replacement.

About 1 in 8 percent of the DePuy replacements will fail within 5 years. What’s worse, the faulty hip replacement causes serious pain and difficulty walking, and recovery from the second hip replacement is often more difficult than after the first. There is also the possibility of metallic particles being shed by the devices. These potentially toxic cobalt-chromium particles may, in high levels, cause heart and/or nervous system problems.

According to a recent article in The New York Times, since January 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received more than 5,000 reports of problems with metal-on-metal hip replacements… more than they received in the previous four years combined. About 75 percent of the complaints were about the recalled Johnson & Johnson products.

The mounting complaints confirm what many experts have feared — that all-metal replacement hips are on a trajectory to become the biggest and most costly medical implant problem since Medtronic recalled a widely used heart device component in 2007. About 7,700 complaints have been filed in connection with that recall.

Many of the metal-on-metal hip replacement products were sold without testing them in patients (a move that, strangely is  within FDA guidelines). But in May 2011, the FDA ordered producers to examine the failure rate, the complication rate, and the threat to patients. In addition, researchers are trying to understand exactly how the metal particles cause tissue damage, and why some people experience debilitating pain, while others don’t. According to the article in The New York Times:

As problems and questions grow, most surgeons are abandoning the all-metal hips, saying they are unwilling to expose new patients to potential dangers when safer alternatives — mainly replacements that combine metal and plastic components — are available. Some researchers also fear that many all-metal hips suffer from a generic flaw. Current use of all metal devices has plummeted to about 5 percent of the market, though a few of the models are performing relatively well in select patients.

“It is like playing Russian roulette,” said Dr. Geoffrey H. Westrich, an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, who has stopped using all-metal implants.

But for patients who already have tissue damage from faulty hip replacements, the idea that the FDA will now begin studying the devices amounts to little more than a cruel joke. According to one patient, physical therapist Ann Morrison, who was interviewed by reporters for The New York Times:

“We will be the little crash test dummies here until they figure out the health ramifications for us down the road,” said Ms. Morrison, who has sued the DePuy division of Johnson & Johnson, which made her implants.

What To Do Now

If you already know that you received one of the recalled DePuy hip replacement systems, or any metal-on-metal hip replacement, we recommend two things:

1. Schedule a follow-up appointment with your surgeon, even if you’re not currently having symptoms. It is possible that you could have early signs of failure before you recognize the pain. Your doctor will be able to evaluate how your hip is functioning and whether the recalled implant is in need of replacement.

In that visit, your orthopaedic surgeon may also want do a blood test that looks at the level of microscopic metal particles around your hip. Metal particles are a sign that recalled implant has failed. If the blood test indicates a high level of these particles, your surgeon may want to do a second blood test three months later. These levels may be high even if you are not experiencing any symptoms, so this blood testing is very important.

2. Call HensonFuerst Attorneys for important information about your rights. If you or someone you care about received one of these defective joint replacement components, we would like to speak with you right away.  You may have a legal case and be able to collect compensation for the injury caused by this faulty medical device.

What’s most important: DO NOT contact DePuy, or SIGN ANY RELEASES OF YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS TO DePuy or JOHNSON & JOHNSON or any other manufacturer before you talk with a lawyer. On DePuy’s website, they ask patients to register with them and receive a claim number. DO NOT DO THIS YOURSELF. Let a lawyer handle everything. Big corporations look out for their own financial interests, not the interests of people who may have been harmed. If Johnson & Johnson was interested in helping patients, they would not have allowed the device to continue to be sold even after they knew it was causing serious problems.

At HensonFuerst, your health is our top priority. We dedicate ourselves to protecting individuals from the greed and callousness of large corporations. Let us work for you. Our attorneys are available 24 hours/day, every day of the year at 1-800-4-LAW-MED (1-800-452-9633). Or, visit our website at www.lawmed.com for more information. You can also fill out a free online consultation form for an immediate evaluation of your case.

Life Doesn’t Wait, and neither should you. If you have questions, HensonFuerst has answers!

This law firm is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or associated with the Associated Press, DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., or Johnson & Johnson

To see the HensonFuerst YouTube video about the DePuy hip recall, click here:  HensonFuerst YouTube video

To read the full article in The New York Times, click here:  Hip Implant Complaints Surge, Even as the Dangers Are Studied

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27
Jul

Describe Your Pain….

Anyone who has ever been severely injured in an accident, had surgery, or been diagnosed with a chronic illness knows that one of the most difficult parts of a doctor’s visit is trying to explain the quality and severity of your pain. Now, researchers are working to make that process easier for patients and their doctors.

“Pain research is very difficult because nothing allows the physician to see the patient’s pain directly,” says Werner Ceusters, MD, professor of psychiatry in University at Buffalo’s School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and principal investigator on a new National Institutes of Health grant, An Ontology for Pain and Related Disability, Mental Health and Quality of Life. “The patient has to describe what he or she is feeling.”

Anyone who has ever lived with pain knows that describing it is no easy task. Typically, the first step is for the physician to ask about severity: On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is no pain, and 10 is pain severe enough to send you to the emergency room, how would you describe your pain. That might be easy to rate the pain at the moment, but if you go 3 months between doctor appointments, it doesn’t suffice. Some pain spikes to level-10, but settles back at a level-5.  And sometimes, living for months or years with level-6 pain can make a person feel helpless and hopeless.

The next step is to describe the pain. Healthcare workers sometimes offer a list of acceptable adjectives:  Burning, stabbing, aching, sharp, dull. That doesn’t begin to cover it. What if the pain is like nothing you’ve ever felt, and the only word that seems to describe it is, simply, pain? What if the pain feels like tiny trucks are driving over your bones–does that description make sense to a doctor?

In an article in ScienceDaily, researcher Ceusters says:

…each patient’s subjective experience of pain is different. Descriptions of pain therefore lack the precision and specificity that is taken for granted with other disorders, where biomarkers or physiological indicators reveal what health-care providers need in order to assess the severity of a particular disorder.

An added complication is that people have different vocabularies, different linguistic capabilities, and different cultural backgrounds, all of which can affect how people evaluate and describe pain. That’s why Ceusters is beginning to find ways to describe pain in uniform, formal ways. His research, funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, will study data gathered from thousands of patients with chronic pain in the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Israel, and Germany.

In the end, the goal will be to represent what pain is, and how it relates to body parts, activities, and functions. According to Ceusters:

“Our goal is to create a software program that will allow all pain specialists to express themselves in crystal clear terms,” he says, “We will create a symptom checklist that can be understood by computers. We have to define the terminology of pain.”

For people whose lives are defined by pain, that is a worthy goal that could eventually lead to a greater understanding and treatment of a variety of chronic pain conditions.

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