Some of the injuries suffered during an electrical shock are immediately apparent—high-voltage shocks often cause severe burns and muscle damage due to convulsions. However, the neurological and skeletal injuries sustained during a shock are not often easily visible. In some cases, these injuries will only become symptomatic a few years after the initial electrical injury. To learn about four possible long-term consequences of a severe electrical shock and how you can help manage the symptoms, read on.
1. Loss of Coordination
Your muscles, skin, and connective tissue contain proprioceptive nerves that constantly report back to your brain on the position of your body. They work in concert with your vision and your inner ear to provide you with coordination and your sense of balance. Unfortunately, these nerves are easily damaged during an electrical shock. As a result, you may have difficulty walking or performing tasks that require fine motor coordination.
2. Tingling, Pain, or Numbness Throughout Your Body
In addition to proprioceptive nerves, electrical shocks also damage the sensory nerves that allow you to feel pressure, pain, and temperature. When these nerves are damaged, it causes neuropathy. You may experience constant pain, numbness, or tingling sensations as a result.
These sensations may not be located anywhere near the place where you suffered the electrical shock. Due to the way that electricity travels throughout your body on the way to the ground, it's easy for it to damage sensory nerves that are quite a distance away from the place where the current entered your body.
3. Severe Joint Pain
Your bones have a very high resistance to electrical current, which causes them to heat up rapidly when a high-voltage current enters your body. High temperature can cause your bone tissue to break down and die, resulting in a condition called osteonecrosis. This is most likely to happen in your joints due to the fact that your joints are surrounded by other tissues with high electrical resistance, like muscles, tendons, and ligaments. As all of the highly resistant tissues heat up due to the electrical shock, the combined heat severely damages the nearby bone. Osteonecrosis typically results in chronic pain and instability in your joint.
4. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression
Electrical shocks can also cause symptoms similar to traumatic brain injuries, such as anxiety, depression, and PTSD. This can be attributed to the stress of living with long-term complications of an electrical shock, along with damage to the brain caused by the electrical shock itself. Electrical shocks can also result in other neurological symptoms such as memory loss or extreme changes in personality.
If you've suffered an electrical shock in the past and are beginning to develop any of the above symptoms, it's a good idea to find a clinic in your area that provides comprehensive electrical injury care. Managing the diverse long-term symptoms from an electrical injury is best handled by a team with a wide-ranging set of skills, such as physiotherapy, neurology, psychotherapy, and orthopedic surgery. Seeking specialized care can help minimize the impact that long-term electrical injury complications have on your quality of life.
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