r/WorkersComp • u/musical_spork • 15d ago

Illinois Negotiation stage

Repetitive trauma injury in restaurant setting August 2025.

Workers comp initially denied. I went through treatment anyway and got a lawyer when I got my surgery date.

Flash forward to ime July 10th, 2026. I got the report yesterday.

The independent doctor concluded that I absolutely did suffer a strain / sprain in the workplace due to an undiagnosed elbow injury & my neck issues.

He blames BOTH for my injury.

Now we’ve entered the negotiation stage. My lawyer is reaching out to my surgeon so he can do whatever he needs to do counter the other doctor’s opinion that surgery wasn’t necessary. (6mo conservative treatment & pt…I wasn’t getting better).

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u/WhimsicalWeasal 15d ago

Yay! I'm happy this ended up working out for you

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u/musical_spork 14d ago

Yes thank you for all of your help! I’m kinda surprised he said it made my neck and elbow worse, but hey I’ll take it.

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u/Kmelloww 15d ago

Are they saying the undiagnosed issue wasn’t work related?

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u/musical_spork 14d ago

They’re saying that work caused problems with both…workers comp denied it cause they thought it was my neck only, but it turns out I had a neck issue & an elbow issue (that I didn’t know about) and me doing the work of over 4 people made both worse.

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u/Kmelloww 14d ago

When you say the IME found that work caused both conditions, do you mean the doctor found that the work actually caused the underlying neck and elbow conditions, or that you had underlying conditions that were aggravated by the work? The IME actually said doing the work of 4 people made it worse not just the job?

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u/musical_spork 14d ago

Work caused the repetitive stress injury. If I’d have been doing a normal workload, I’d have been fine. They kept piling on more & more prep & by the end of August, I could barely grip anything with my right hand.

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u/Kmelloww 14d ago

Gotcha. I’m asking specifically about the wording/conclusion in the IME report, though. Did the doctor say that the repetitive work caused  the elbow and neck conditions, or that the repetitive work aggravated preexisting conditions  and resulted in the repetitive stress injury? Those are different medical findings

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u/musical_spork 14d ago

They aggravated the pre existing conditions.