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The most unexpected and unbelievable things can happen after trauma. The human body is meant to withstand a fair amount of trauma, but when we’re talking about a car accident or spinal cord injuries, we’re looking at extremes. The human body was not meant to travel at high speeds in a metal cage crashing into other humans traveling at high speeds in metal cages.
A car accident can change a person’s behavior, onset trauma disorders, lead to lifelong health issues, and… cause diabetes? The development of Diabetes Type 2 and traumatic events including car accidents are becoming more commonly acknowledged. Researchers and doctors have long suspected the link between diabetes, spinal cord injury, and traumatic event. Now, the public is picking up on this issue too.
Connection Between Trauma and Diabetes
Although the medical field has been on to this connection for a while now, it seems outlandish to everyday people. One medical Network points out that the correlation between diabetes and spinal cord injury is about 20%. That means that one in five people who’ve experienced a spinal cord injury have developed adult-onset diabetes.
It is even possible for survivors of a car accident to develop diabetes without specifically experiencing a spinal cord injury. After a crash, especially a severe crash, the body’s inflammatory response could trigger and mobilize fluid to wounds where it begins the repair process. But if that inflammatory response doesn’t go exactly as it should, it attacks the body instead. When the inflammatory system turns and attacks the body, it’s likely to cause damage to the pancreas, which would cause it to have trouble or to outright stop producing insulin.
Diabetes After a Crash
Sustaining diabetes after a car crash often means that they’re managing other injuries while experiencing the lifestyle change that comes with a diabetes diagnosis. It is possible for some people with type 2 diabetes to manage diabetes, focusing mostly on diet and putting a low focus on injections. It is not possible for people with type 1 diabetes to work away from injections, and they will also have to pay close attention to their diet around the clock.
Understanding how your diet and dietary choices impact your diabetes and diabetes management can take years. You may have to work with specialists, nutritionists, and your doctor to determine your balance of insulin and diet choices.
Managing diabetes often involves checking your blood glucose levels throughout the day, counting carbohydrates at each meal, and managing supplies such as needles, test strips, and glucose meters.
Long-Term Complications and Driving with Diabetes
It’s even possible that diabetes could affect your ability to drive. There’s an outstanding issue regarding traffic safety and diabetics behind the wheel. Diabetic patients are susceptible to three factors of impairment which may put their safety and the safety of others at risk when they’re driving.
Those with diabetes, type 1 or type 2, could experience hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, and diabetic complications. These issues can come on fast, and the person may not be fully aware of the complication or change in their blood sugar until it’s affecting their ability to drive. The most common issue that diabetics face is acute hyperglycemia, which can cause cognitive dysfunction when hypoglycemia is striking. The only solution is Vigilant glucose control and careful management of glucose levels. Diabetes can impair driving ability, and complications can strike while on the road, even under strict glucose management.
Can This Go Into Your Claim? Ask a Cincinnati Car Accident Attorney
If you experienced adult-onset diabetes after a traumatic event such as a car accident then make sure you’re including the medical needs and issues associated with diabetes in your claim. Working closely with a Cincinnati car accident attorney from Young, Reverman, and Mazzei can help you include everything in your claim. You might have to work with a handful of experts or get your doctor on board to acknowledge that you are not at risk for diabetes before the crash, and now you have diabetes for life.
Diabetes is one element that can play a role in your claim if it’s associated with your crash. But it’s likely that you sustained a wide variety of other injuries and a hefty amount of property damage. You could have at a mountain of medical debt and know that with diabetes you’ll have ongoing medical costs for the rest of your life. Work with our law office to see how you can include this element in your claim and how we can work to show the clear connection between diabetes and traumatic events.
