Women and Whiplash

 by Dr. Mark Frobb

 If you’re a woman and you’ve suffered a whiplash injury you may be overlooking critical information that could dramatically affect your recovery.  Women tend to fare far worse than their male counterparts when living with whiplash. And when it comes to this particular malady, timing is everything.

In my 30-plus years of clinical practice as a Pain Management Physician, I’ve seen an imbalance in the ratio of male to female whiplash patients. I’ve also seen issues that are unique to women’s whiplash recovery specifically. Sixteen thousand patients have inevitably led me to draw this conclusion: patient education, and the education of their support network, can make all the difference. When it comes to whiplash and women, results are even more staggering.

 “After 23 months, my neck movement is still limited…even simple neck movements can surprise me with excruciating, shooting, severe pain. With the accompanying forgetfulness, personality and mood swings, irritability, anxiety and depression, I thought I would go crazy!” Valerie Oskam, a Pharmacy Technician, is not alone in her experience of a multitude of unexpected and debilitating symptoms while recovering from a whiplash-associated disorder (WAD).

 Typical female anatomy dictates that women have less muscle mass than men, resulting in a greater severity of whiplash injury. Women now face additional challenges to receiving appropriate settlements for their injuries due to the Minor Impact Soft Tissue (MIST) policy adopted by the insurance industry—also known as the No Crash No Cash policy [ICBCINJURYCLAIM.COM NOTES: ICBC refers to this policy as their low velocity impact program]. MIST asserts that it is virtually impossible to sustain any permanent or serious injury in a low-damage automobile accident; however, impacts of less than 13 km/h (8 mph) translate into 800 pounds of stress on a 100-pound woman.

 Air traffic controller Russell Kanhai had this to say, “As a whiplash victim with former military jet training experience, I am absolutely amazed to read in this excellent handbook that even seemingly minor whiplash accidents can subject whiplash victims to G forces well in excess of the G tolerances authorized on aircrew and aircraft.”

 These “G forces” are the reality of trauma your neck is experiencing when sustaining a whiplash injury. If it’s unacceptable for a military jet pilot to withstand, it seems grossly inappropriate to expect anyone else to. The handbook he refers to is my most recent publication Surviving Whiplash: Saving Your Neck Without Losing Your Mind.

 Until now, women recovering from whiplash had no easy choice when accessing step-by-step instructions for understanding their injury or discussing it with healthcare providers, insurance agents or legal counsel. In addition to their pain and anxiety, they were left to guess at their most appropriate next move—possibly with intense pressure from an insurance provider or even a loved one. The wrong choice could very easily leave them without the appropriate financial settlement or medical intervention they could need to a manage a significant loss of income or permanently altered lifestyle.

Many women are doing double duty with families and careers, returning home from an 8-hour workday and a lengthy commute to tend to their “second shift”. Further compounding the problem, these women may be additionally confronted by a “get over it” attitude from employers, family members, insurance companies, and even caregivers.

 Your Injury, Your Recovery, Your Rights

In answer to the specific needs of my female whiplash patients, I created a comprehensive manual that can be read cover-to-cover in an evening. Surviving Whiplash: Saving Your Neck Without Losing Your Mind walks women through each step of their experience with whiplash, providing them with immediately usable, practical advice and the ability to become their own best advocate.

Ultimately, we all must take responsibility for our own recoveries, regardless of their cause or severity. Surviving Whiplash: Saving Your Neck Without Losing Your Mind  is my effort to ensure whiplash survivors are able to do just that.

About Dr. Mark Frobb: a Pain Management physician and whiplash-associated disorder (WAD) specialist with a special focus on Orthopedic Medicine Rehabilitation and spinal care problems. In his third decade of clinical practice, Dr. Frobb’s personal experience and internationally published clinical work on the treatment of chronic back pain have earned him the respect and recognition of his medical colleagues. As a medical expert on whiplash-associated disorders, Dr. Frobb has prepared literally hundreds of medical legal opinions on behalf of his patients involved in litigation with insurance companies.

For more information or to order your own copy of Surviving Whiplash: Saving Your Neck Without Losing Your Mind, visit www.survivingwhiplash.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Injury Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.