Jackson, Mississippi Misdiagnosis of Stroke Lawyer

Strokes are misdiagnosed about 10 percent of the time. They’re often mistaken for seizures, migraines, or even low blood sugar. Missing the signs of a stroke and misdiagnosing this serious health issue can be disastrous – potentially causing permanent brain damage or death.

If you or someone you love has been harmed because you had a stroke that was misdiagnosed in Jackson, Mississippi, call the Jackson personal injury attorneys at Singleton Schreiber for a free case evaluation. You may have the right to sue for damages, which could help you pay for costly medical care, long-term nursing assistance, disability, and distress. Working with our trusted and experienced Jackson, MS, misdiagnosis of stroke lawyers can help you maximize your recovery.

Singleton Schreiber is a nationally recognized leader in personal injury litigation who has helped injury victims and families across the country win over $3 billion in damages. Now, our local Mississippi trial attorneys are ready to invest the firm’s national resources into helping you after a misdiagnosis of stroke has upturned your life.

We offer a free consultation, so call our Jackson, MS, law office for help today.

What Are the Signs and Symptoms of a Stroke?

The signs of a stroke are often mistaken for other medical issues – some serious, some relatively minor.

Signs of a stroke, known as FAST signs, include:

• Face drooping
• Arm weakness
• Slurred speech
• Time matters – the sooner a stroke is diagnosed, the better

Other signs of a stroke can include:

• Numbness and/or tingling in the face or extremities
• Difficulty seeing
• Severe headache
• Dizziness
• Balance and coordination problems

Patients presenting with some, but not all, of these symptoms are at a higher risk of being misdiagnosed.

How Are Strokes Misdiagnosed?

When patients go to the emergency room with some symptoms of a stroke, it can be misdiagnosed as:

• Vertigo
• Seizure disorders
• Hypoglycemia
• Brain tumors
• Migraines
• Multiple sclerosis, or
• Myasthenia Gravis.

This typically happens because the signs of a stroke overlap with the symptoms of these health issues. If patients present with non-FAST symptoms – especially a lack of face drooping and weakness – practitioners might rule out a stroke during a differential diagnosis in favor of a different condition.

Research shows that women and young people are most likely to be misdiagnosed when they’re having a stroke. Most often, this is because women and younger people present with “non-classic stroke presentations.” Women are also more likely to present with “benign” symptoms like fatigue and headache that are often dismissed or underappreciated by their healthcare providers.

When healthcare providers ignore signs of a stroke or fail to take additional actions to rule out the possibility of a stroke, and a patient is injured or dies as a result, the opportunity to file a medical malpractice lawsuit may arise. 

How Do I Prove That My Stroke Was Misdiagnosed?

Stroke misdiagnoses are often the result of medical negligence. Healthcare providers downplay patient complaints, ignore health histories, or fail to order diagnostic tests like CT Scans, MRIs, echocardiograms, and ultrasounds to rule out or confirm that a patient is having a stroke.

When a stroke is misdiagnosed because of a medical error, the consequences can be swift and catastrophic – often causing permanent damage to the brain, paralysis, and/or death.

As the victim of an avoidable medical error in Jackson, MS, you’ll have the opportunity to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against your provider and other responsible parties. To win your stroke misdiagnosis lawsuit, you’ll have the burden of proving the following things.

• Duty of Care: Your healthcare provider owed you a duty of care. In Mississippi, this means the provider is expected to provide the level of care expected of them as a doctor, nurse, or specialist. 

• Breach of Duty: Your provider must have failed to meet the standard of care by failing to diagnose your stroke – perhaps because they downplayed your symptoms, misattributed the signs of a stroke to a less serious condition, or misinterpreted test results.

• Causation: It’s not enough that your provider misdiagnosed your stroke. Their misdiagnosis must have caused you to suffer an avoidable and unforeseeable injury or the wrongful death of a loved one. 
• Damages: You must be able to show that you’ve suffered damages – like lost wages, medical expenses, or pain and suffering – because of the provider’s actions (or failure to act).

Ultimately, you need to show that, if you’d seen a different provider, they wouldn’t have made the same mistake(s) that led to your misdiagnosis. Your job is to prove that your doctor’s conduct was unreasonable given their degree of experience, education, skill, and training, and that they fell short in providing an acceptable level of care.

How Long Will I Have to Sue For Damages Related to a Misdiagnosed Stroke in Mississippi?

You’ll usually have up to two years against a private provider and one year against a public provider to formally sue for damages related to a misdiagnosed stroke. 

The two-year statute of limitations can potentially be tolled (paused) if there’s a delay in discovering an injury related to the misdiagnosis. However, a seven-year statute of repose requires that most medical malpractice claims – including those related to stroke misdiagnosis – are filed within seven years of the date the medical error is made.

If you miss the filing deadline, you risk losing the right to bring a legal claim against your doctor, the hospital where you were misdiagnosed, or another liable party.

Experienced Jackson, MS Misdiagnosis of Stroke Attorneys Ready to Fight For You

Strokes are medical emergencies that can happen when blood flow to the brain is blocked or reduced. If a stroke isn’t diagnosed and treated promptly, patients can suffer permanent physical disabilities or die. It’s critical that healthcare providers can identify the signs of a stroke and help their patients avoid lifelong consequences. If you’ve suffered harm because you had a stroke that was misdiagnosed by a Jackson, MS, emergency room or healthcare provider, call Singleton Schreiber.

Our Jackson, MS medical malpractice lawyers can help you fight for the compensation you need to cover costly medical care, lost wages and disability, nursing care, and emotional distress.

Backed by decades of hands-on experience litigating high-stakes medical malpractice cases, our misdiagnosis of stroke attorneys in Jackson, MS, can help you win your case and maximize your damages.

We offer a free consultation. Call our Mississippi law office in Jackson to get started today.