Chronic Pain and Full-Time Employment: How Much Is Too Much?

The sound of an alarm clock or cell phone alarm ringing on a workday is unpleasant for most people, but if the only thing you are dreading is rush hour traffic or your micromanaging boss, consider yourself lucky.  Imagine trying to get through a workday where you have to stand, walk, or drive a vehicle throughout your entire shift when chronic pain resulting from a work injury makes it so that it takes effort just to sit on your couch at home.

The workers’ compensation paperwork can make it sound like, once your employer’s workers’ compensation insurance has finished paying for the treatment it promised you, it is as though your injury is gone forever, but injured workers know that that is not always the case.  If you are suffering from chronic pain after a work injury, contact a workers’ compensation lawyer.

Just Power Through the Pain?

Americans work more hours per week than people in any other industrialized country, and the workload has only increased in recent years.  Stereotypes about Americans being workaholics no longer hold up. The reason Americans work so much is an economic necessity; even if you are lucky enough to have the status of employees with employer-provided health benefits, an increasing number of workers have second jobs.  This includes workers who feel that they cannot afford to miss work, even when they are sick or in pain. A post on The Mighty by Elly Copeland, who works full time despite suffering from chronic physical and mental illnesses, recommends the following strategies for dealing with chronic pain at work.

• Waking up earlier than normal, since pain is often worst first thing in the morning
• Listening to motivational speeches
• Having a sense of humor
• Over-the-counter pain medicine

If you are trying to make it through your workdays with chronic pain, your response to those suggestions was probably not knowing whether to laugh or cry.  Her best suggestion is the last one: “know your limits.”

Injured Workers Have Justice on Their Side

There is an alternative to suffering in silence, and it does not require you to downsize your standard of living to the bare minimum so that you can survive on disability benefits from Social Security.  It may be that the workers’ compensation benefits you received in connection to your work injury were not enough. A workers’ compensation lawyer may be able to help. You should contact a personal injury lawyer as soon as possible after the workplace accident that caused your injury.  You may have grounds for a personal injury lawsuit, even if you cannot challenge the benefits that your employer has allotted to you for workers’ compensation.

Contact Walton Telken Bragee Attorneys at Law About Workers’ Compensation Cases

You are not a robot; it is possible to send a human being to the repair shop after an accident and then expect him or her to get back to work as if nothing happened.  Chronic pain can have devastating effects on your physical and mental health. Contact Walton Telken Bragee Injury Attorneys in the Evansville, Illinois area to discuss your case.