Personal Injury and Social Security Disability Blog

Link of the Day - Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

A number of our Social Security disability clients suffer from chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome. Fortunately, there are several good Internet sites for discussion of this condition and for support of the people who suffer from it.

One of the best of those sites is ImmuneSupport.com. Here is an interesting section of the site:

How Can You Tell if You Have Fibromyalgia?
Your doctor will ask about your pain symptoms and then press on a series of anatomically-defined soft tissue body sites called “tender points.” There are 18 tender points on the body that will usually be highly sensitive to pressure in people with fibromyalgia as specified by the American College of Rheumatology criteria. People who do not have fibromyalgia are much less tender to pressure applied at these tender points.

What is Fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and tenderness in localized areas of the neck, spine, shoulders, and hips called “tender points.” According to William Hennen, Ph.D., author of Fibromyalgia: A Nutritional Approach, fibromyalgia has been classified as a syndrome, not a disease. He explains that a disease is a condition with a clearly identifiable cause, while a syndrome is a set of symptoms that define the condition without a single causative agent upon which to place the blame.

What are the Symptoms of Fibromyalgia?
While the symptoms associated with Fibromyalgia fluctuate from person to person, there is one common symptom that all agree on - they ache all over. The pain can feel like a deep bone ache, pains and needles, or a stabbing or burning pain. Muscles may feel like they have been pulled or overworked. There are times this pain is mild, others when it is so severe that it becomes unbearable.

Along with pain, many Fibromyalgia sufferers report headaches, poor sleep, fatigue, depression, and irregular bowel habits. Many others simply describe their symptoms as "flu-like."

New Bicycle Design -- Good Idea or Bad?

A new bicycle designed to help children make that big transition from trike to bike seems like a genuine technological breakthrough. But will it detract from the rite of passage, both for kids and parents, of that exhilarating and terrifying moment when young children realize they have been pushed out into the real world, all alone, with only two skinny tires and their own sense of balance keeping them from a painful fall to the unforgiving pavement?

I'm thrilled to see innovations such as this, but I'm also glad that I and my kids learned to ride bikes the old-fashioned way.

Partial Setback For Vioxx Plaintiffs

In a partial setback for Vioxx plaintiffs, U.S. District Judge Eldon E. Fallon ruled the jury's August 17, 2006, verdict in the Barnett v. Merck trial had to be overturned, and a new trial held. The judge said the liability portion of the verdict was reasonable, but that the damage award of $50 million was excessive.

Perhaps Better Juries in Texas?

Juries in North, West, East, and Central Texas are notoriously conservative in awarding damages in personal injury claims. South Texas has a reputation for being more liberal, probably due to the disproportionate Hispanic population.

One reason for this conservatism, at least in Dallas County, has to do with juror pay. The standard daily pay for serving on a Texas jury is $6.00. The amount had not been increased since 1954, and was the lowest in the nation. This paltry amount barely covers the cost of courthouse parking.

The $6.00 pay is one reason many working people simply don't show up for jury duty. In Dallas County it is estimated that only one in five people summoned to jury duty actually go to the courthouse. Unfortunately, there is no follow-up, so there is no punishment for refusing to serve. What this means, in practical terms, is that Dallas juries are composed of retired people, housewives, and executives who will be paid their salary whether they are at work or not. The people who don't serve are the hourly workers who cannot afford to be off work for any length of time.

Fortunately, there was a bill recently passed by the Texas Legislature to raise juror pay to $40.00 per day. This new law should increase the percentage of working men and women on Texas juries, and give juries a more balanced cross-section of the actual Texas population. That would be a good thing for personal injury plaintiffs, which means it had little chance of passing. But we got lucky on this one.

Link of the Day - Social Security Office Locator

Do you ever need to find a Social Security office's address or phone number? The Social Security Administration makes it easy for you. Just go to the Social Security office locator page.

Link of the Day - New Internet Search Engine -- jux2

There's yet another new search engine out there. This one, called jux2, is a Meta-Searcher, which means it looks across multiple search engines before returning your results. Here is the site's own description:

As search aficionados, we have watched recent changes in the search industry with great interest. Yahoo! launched its own search algorithm in February 2004. MSN previewed its proprietary search algorithm in July 2004, and is expected to roll it out soon. That will give Internet searchers a choice of four different major search algorithms (Ask Jeeves, Google, MSN, and Yahoo). It also made us wonder: how different are the search engines, and is one any better than the others?

We created the jux2 meta search engine as a comparative research tool to answer these questions. Using jux2, we learned that search engines are more different than people think, typically sharing fewer than 3.5 of their top 10 results.  We also found that a comparative tool like jux2 gives users far more control over their searches and, in many cases, better search results than from any single search engine.

Our hope is that the community of advanced search users finds jux2 an interesting and useful tool.

Accommodating Disabled Clients

Because we represent personal injury clients and Social Security disability claimants, we do all we can to make their visits to our office as comfortable as possible.

I wrote an article recently for the American Bar Association's GPsolo magazine. In it, I described ways our firm accommodates our physically challenged clients. Many of the accommodations cost little or no money, and will pay for themselves in client goodwill.

There is also a short discussion of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and how the act applies to various businesses, especially to law firms.

Link of the Day - New And Used Car Prices, Automotive Reviews, And Car Buying Guide

AutoSite.com is helpful and interesting for personal injury lawyers and consumers alike. Here you can find information and prices on every type of automobile, both new and used. It's useful whether you're researching the value of a vehicle at the time of a collision, or reading reviews of a vehicle you're considering purchasing.

Link of the Day - Medical News And Information For Doctors And Patients

MDLinx is a Web site originally set up for physicians to get medical news and information. But it now contains a large amount of such news and information for consumers also. It is well worth a look. Here is a description from the site:

MDLinx connects healthcare professionals and patients to tomorrow’s medical knowledge and provides the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries with highly targeted interactive marketing, education, content, and research solutions.

Established in March of 1999 in Washington, D.C., MDLinx is the leading provider of online marketing solutions to the healthcare industry. The company's solutions include:

• Targeted Online Advertising
• Content Licensing, and
• Market Research.

These solutions enable pharmaceutical, biotech, and healthcare clients to align offline strategies with online initiatives.

MDLinx is an award-winning, practical tool that busy physicians, healthcare professionals, and a growing number of educated consumers use to stay up to date with the latest research in the medical field. The company aggregates medical articles and research from more than 1,200 peer-reviewed journals and leading news media on a daily basis. Our physician editors sort this content into 32 medical specialty sites, 36 patient sites, and more than 743 subspecialty sections, all available online. Users can choose to view this information online or subscribe to any of our 743 daily newsletters.

For the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry, MDLinx provides a unique way to communicate directly with physicians and healthcare consumers. MDLinx offers advertising, content licensing, medical education, and market research solutions that help companies broadcast product messages and build brand awareness among their audiences. MDLinx works with eight of the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world, providing unparalleled online access to soughtafter target groups.

Link of the Day - Friday Fun

Quotes4All isn't always humorous. Sometimes the random quotes there are quite thought-provoking. I have my Google home page set to display a new quote each time I visit, and I always enjoy seeing whatever quote appears. Check it out.