The repetitive nature of your job responsibilities can take a toll on your physical health. Whether you spend all day holding tools in a carpentry shop or moving parts down an assembly line, repetitive job functions can damage your body and lead to chronic pain while you are at work and after your shift.
Many workers dealing with pain in their hips, back, hands or shoulders bravely try to push through and ignore physical discomfort. However, the longer the issue goes without treatment, the more severe the pain may become and the more of your day it will affect.
Eventually, your chronic pain could affect your job performance and employment. If you don’t get help from your employer, you could lose your job.
Three ways your pain level can impact your job
Chronic pain can make you a less-pleasant coworker. Obviously, you will be more irritable at work when you have to cope with serious physical discomfort. The change in your mood and personality that results from chronic pain at work can affect the relationship you have with others.
However, there are other chronic pain consequences that can affect your job, too. Chronic pain in a certain body part may lead to an individual favoring the other side of their body. The result may be reduced strength in the affected body part.
Even if you try to continue performing your job as you always have, the pain that you feel at work will likely slow you down, making you a less productive and efficient employee. Between the physical limitations caused by your pain and the impact on your mood, chronic pain that you ignore could keep you from getting a promotion or even lead to your termination.
Workers’ compensation can help
Often, chronic pain that flares up on the job is the result of a repetitive stress injury caused by constantly doing the same job tasks. Notifying your employer of the symptoms and seeking medical evaluation can lead to a workers’ compensation claim.
Workers’ compensation will pay 100% of the costs for your medical care and may even pay you up to two-thirds of your average wages if you need time off to heal. Addressing your pain by asking for workers’ compensation benefits can help you protect your job and your health.