Autonomic dysreflexia is a condition that a person can develop after suffering from a severe spinal cord injury.
If the spinal cord sustains irreparable damage, you can lose your ability to move as well as your ability to feel beyond the point of injury.
Thus, you may not notice that you are developing health problems such as bladder infections and bowel obstruction.
This can cause you to suffer from a condition called autonomic dysreflexia.
Also called hyperreflexia, autonomic dysreflexia describes the way that your body reacts to situations that you may not be able to feel-such as skin irritations and other common problems.
This is most common to people with an injury to the T-5 vertebrae and above, but it becomes less common the lower the site of injury.
Additionally, the longer you go without developing hyperreflexia, the less likely you are to ever experience this problem.
Basically, autonomic hyperreflexia is the medical term for an overreacting autonomic nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system is responsible for involuntary muscle movements like peristalsis of food and the contracting and expanding of blood vessels.
It also regulates the heart, eyes, and skin contractions such as raising goosebumps.
Normally, if your body senses that your bladder is full or that you have a skin irritation, the nerve impulses to your brain allow you to realize what is happening so that you can take care of the problem.
However, with paralysis or loss of feeling, the nerves detecting these problems are no longer able to deliver the message to the brain.
Instead, the autonomic nervous system acts automatically, causing a release of norepinephrine.
Norepinephrine is a hormone that causes a decrease in heart rate and increase in blood pressure.
Once you sense that you are having an autonomic dysreflexia attack, it is important to locate the source of your problem so that you can rid yourself of the bowel impaction or full bladder.
By releasing the problem, you can reset your autonomic nervous system.
If the source of your problem is not quickly fixed, you can suffer from a heart attack or stroke.
If you now have a spinal cord injury, you can face the rest of your life with paralysis and the threat of hyperreflexia.
If your injury is the result of another person's negligence, you may be entitled to financial compensation to help with your medical bills and other expenses.
To discuss your case, contact a compassionate yet determined Sheboygan personal injury attorney from Habush Habush & Rottier, S.
C.
, today.