After suffering from a back injury at work, you may expect the recovery period to take no time at all. You may think you will be back at work before you know it.
But back injuries actually take a long time to heal, and sometimes workers can end up without their full ability to do their job for months, years, or even their entire career.
Rest is the only recovery
Cleveland Clinic discusses the impact of a back injury on your ability to earn. First, back injuries are difficult for workers to handle because the only real way to ensure damage gets minimized is by resting. This means not doing physical exercise or activities that can aggravate the back.
This period of rest has to last through the duration of the inflammation stage of the injury. Even for mild injuries, this can last for days. For more severe injuries, this stage may last weeks. This means you may have your work capacity reduced for weeks at a time.
Missing work and paying bills
If you have to miss work entirely, this is difficult for financial reasons. Many people do not have much paid time off, which means sooner or later, you will have to start taking unpaid leave.
On top of that, you may face extra expenses due to the medical bills that may relate to your back injury, including pain killers, physical therapy or even surgery.
This creates a vicious cycle in which you do not earn enough money to keep up with your medical expenses. It is an unfortunately common issue for workers with injured backs.