Do you know what’s wrong with you? If a doctor tells you that you suffer from spinal stenosis do you run home and google spinal stenosis?
It is shocking just how many people I meet who have been given a diagnosis that they accept at face value and don’t do any further research.
What’s up with that? Or I could ask what’s wrong with you?
It is scary to consider the number of people that undergo surgeries without being fully informed of their possible complications and their success rates.
To be honest, I used to fall into this category. Fifteen years ago I underwent three knee surgeries that were ultimately successful. I have no residual pain with the minor exception of a left knee that throbs for about ten minutes after rollerblading for more than an hour.
After thinking that I would never be pain free again, I’ll take that throbbing happily.
But I will admit that at the time of my surgeries I basically accepted what the doctor told me and underwent the procedures: Three times.
If something had asked me, what’s wrong with you? I could have said I had a problem with my meniscus but at the time I didn’t know what a meniscus was or what it did. It was a word I knew without any more information behind it.
I have no regrets about the surgeries because I work hard to have no regrets about anything but in retrospect I think I could have probably avoided the second and third operation.
In the years since I have worked with a large number of clients who were able to avoid surgical repair in favor of changing movement patterns and posture.
Looking back, I think my first surgery was undoubtedly necessary as I tore the entire meniscus off its mooring and the whole thing was sewn back onto the bone. I don’t think that would have healed without going under. The second and third surgeries were “clean outs” and I have learned to be very wary of that term.
The point of all this was I was a truly uninformed consumer and in the years since I have learned just how uninformed most medical consumers are.
As a culture we tend to accepting diagnoses, medications and/or surgery without fully informing ourselves about the ramifications and consequences.
For the good of everyone this tendency must stop.
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