Personal Injury and Social Security Disability Blog

Featured Link — Chron's Disease Information

We see many heart-breaking cases of Chron's disease in our Social Security disability department. This disease can be devastating on a person's ability to work.

The Healthline site has excellent information about Chron's disease. Here is a description of the disease from the site:

Crohn's disease—also known as regional enteritis—is an illness that is characterized by abnormal inflammation within the digestive tract. This inflammation can cause a host of other complications that can interfere with the body's ability to process food and can even be life threatening.

At this time, Crohn's disease is incurable, and its cause remains unknown. The good news, however, is that Crohn’s can be successfully managed, allowing many of its sufferers to minimize its effect on their lives.

Crohn's commonly strikes the lower portion of the small intestine (called the ileum) or parts of the large intestine (the colon), but symptoms can appear anywhere within the gastrointestinal system from the mouth to the anus.

It can cause deep inflammation which affects most or all of the tissue layers in the affected area, and it is not unusual for there to be a number of diseased portions present at the same time, with portions of healthy tissue in between.

The disease can cause symptoms in cycles, with active periods of severe symptoms followed by other periods where a person can be mostly or completely free of symptoms.

Featured Link — MedTerms Medical Dictionary

There are now many medical dictionaries online, but one of the best is MedTerms, at MedicineNet.com. Here is a description from the site:

MedTerms medical dictionary is the medical reference for MedicineNet.com. Our doctors define difficult medical language in easy-to-understand explanations of over 16,000 medical terms.

MedTerms online medical dictionary provides quick access to hard-to-spell and often misspelled medical definitions through an extensive alphabetical listing.

Featured Link — FamilyDoctor

FamilyDoctor.org is a good Web site for getting general medical information. You can check symptoms, drug interactions, and much more at this great-looking site. Here is the description of the American Academy of Family Physicians, which is responsible for the site:

This Web site is operated by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), a national medical organization representing more than 100,300 family physicians, family practice residents and medical students. All of the information on this site has been written and reviewed by physicians and patient education professionals at the AAFP. Visit the AAFP Web site to learn more about the AAFP.

Featured Link — FamilyDoctor

FamilyDoctor.org is a good Web site for getting general medical information. You can check symptoms, drug interactions, and much more at this great-looking site. Here is the description of the American Academy of Family Physicians, which is responsible for the site:

This Web site is operated by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), a national medical organization representing more than 100,300 family physicians, family practice residents and medical students. All of the information on this site has been written and reviewed by physicians and patient education professionals at the AAFP. Visit the AAFP Web site to learn more about the AAFP.

Featured Link — Vehicle Inspection Histories

Can you think of any reason you would want to check the Texas state-mandated inspection record of a vehicle? Well, me either, unless you maybe were trying to prove a defendant vehicle had a safety defect that had been reported in the past. It's a stretch, but it gives me an excuse to mention a site I just found called mytxcar.com. You enter a vehicle identification number (VIN) and you get a complete, detailed history of all the inspections that vehicle has undergone.

Featured Link — AdverseEvents.com

AdverseEvents is a new Web site that lists possible unwanted side-effects from taking medications. There is some very good information here for free, although to get more details you do have to subscribe to the site. Here is their description:

Adverse Events, Inc. (AEI) is the only provider of up-to-the-minute, critical, potentially life-saving information regarding side effects associated with FDA-approved prescription medications. AEI has created a unique set of online tools that are optimized to provide un-paralleled access to adverse event information on over 4,000 drugs, in an easy to understand and navigate format. AEI’s tools give control over treatment plans back to patients and their doctors, while providing an immediate view of potential trends and problems in the drug industry to pharmaceutical, healthcare, insurers, financial institutions and media.

RxFilter™ is a proprietary 17-step data refinement process developed by AdverseEvents, Inc. that standardizes and normalizes the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) Adverse Events Reporting System (AERS) database. Combining complex computer algorithms with hands-on data analysis by highly trained researchers, the RxFilter process is the most thorough optimization procedure ever applied to the FDA's drug safety database. It accurately measures and tracks adverse events associated with medications reported to the FDA.

Featured Link — Employment Laws Around the Country

Cornell University has a Web page with links to employment laws in each state. Very handy.

 

Featured Link — The Social Security Laws

Have you ever wanted to read the actual Social Security laws? No, I didn't think so. That's what lawyers are for, right? But just in case you ever have a need for some late-night reading material, here is the Table of Contents for the whole Social Security Act. Have fun!

Featured Link — Council for Disability Awareness

The Council for Disability Awareness is essentially a group of long-term care insurance companies, but their Web site does contain some helpful information about disability in general, and some disturbing statistics about the likelihood of becoming disabled. Here is the mission statement from the site:

The CDA is a non-profit organization committed to informing and educating the American public about the widespread and growing frequency of disability, and the financial impact it can have.

Since it began in 2005, the Council for Disability Awareness has engaged in communications, research and education about disability. A large part of our mission is providing helpful resources and information to wage earners, their families, the media, employers and anyone concerned about disability and the devastating impact it can have on the finances and lifestyle of American families.

Our mission is:

• To expand public awareness of the growing likelihood of disability occurring among the working population;
• To increase public knowledge about the financial hardship that disability can have on wage earners and their families;
• To demonstrate the value of planning responsibly in the event disability prevents one from earning a living.

Featured Link — MyFibro.com

Many of our Social Security disability clients suffer from Fibromyalgia. This can be a difficult disease to diagnose and treat, and we have found that these clients are constantly seeking more information about their disease. MyFibro.com is a resource for people with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and related issues. It has a lot of good information, and we recommend checking it out.