Alternatives to surgery

[emma]

I'm feeling quite frustrated as iv been researching about prolapsed discs on the net and it seems most patients were advised or given physio and other alternatives to surgery such as injections, acupuncture and time with a chiropractor. I was never told about any of these or offered any other form of pain relief except 8 paracetamol, 4 codeine and ibuprofen to take daily which i was concerned about taking over a long period of time. They just put me straight on the waiting list for the operation. What happened when you got first diagnosed?

[Jude Robinson]

Hi there Emma

Well my circumstances in a nutshell were pain in November, hospitalised for a week, prolapsed disc diagnosed and placed on Gabapentin by the hospital's pain specialist. This got me up and walking, it's what epileptics take every day of their life but it specifically helps nerve pain too. Three months of physio and a few sesssions of hydrotherapy, didn't help then offered the operation which I had in May. Weaned off Gabapentin but the pain is back, my left leg/foot has never got the feeling back and I'm taking cocodamol now.

I wasn't offered any alternative therapy except for physio and the surgeon I had said that often physio and hydrotherapy can make the condition worse :0.

I have heard good things about the Alexander Technique though. I'm considering trying to find a practitioner in my area.

http://www.alexandertechnique.com/
http://www.stat.org.uk/

Hope that helps hon.

Love n hugs


Jude x

[Sakinah]

Hi Emma,

As you learn with a first hospital/emergency experience they are not trained to see outside their narrow view of health and health concerns. The medical industry is helpful in treating life-threatening situations and offering medication for severe conditions, but for many other things, it falls short of treating the human as a whole being. That is why holistic treatments can ease many symptoms the medical establishment is completely perplexed about--because they register the spiritual, emotional and physical aspects of health as being inter-connected, whereas modern medicine does not. It's sad, but unless you are aware of alternative therapies and seek them out yourself, they are rarely recommended by your normal doctor. Think about it...what does a doctor do? He finds a diagnosis, orders tests or scans and writes prescriptions based on what recent 'medical research' tells him. What does a surgeon do? He performs surgery. None of these people are trained to look at a person holistically and see all the deeper clues the body is registering--in fact, the whole system of modern medicine is designed around the idea that the problem can be solved with surgery (technology, effectively) or drugs. Eastern traditions say that there are many other natural treatments (food, herbs, energy healing, etc.) which can treat different problems and symptoms in a more gentle and more complete way, and moreover, that symptoms are sign of the body's clues indicating some kind of larger imbalance, and are not to be simply covered over. Putting the body back into balance so it can heal itself (and the potential for its healing is limitless!) is the first step that any practitioner should take in a non-life-threatening situation.

Unfortunately, for all the reasons I state, one often does not find out about alternative therapies until one has been through a serious health issue and sought help through the medical establishment. The only reason I refused surgery for my prolapsed disc is that I had a previous spinal surgery and I experienced the insufficiencies of modern medicine firsthand before I ever came to alternative solutions--but when I did I was so grateful they existed! That is why I offer my story to others, to help them avoid going through the same disappointment.

Please see my other post on "Healing without Surgery." I opted to heal without surgery and 2.5 months after figuring out my problem (I spent one month prior that that totally clueless of what was happening and why I was in so much pain) I'm doing really well and am experiencing only minor problems. I plan to offer a full update soon 2 months after I made my original post I mention above.

I highly recommend homeopathics, even to treat the nerve pain! Accupuncture also does wonders and if you can get a couple of treatments, even better. By the way, Homeopathy was more widely practiced and recognized for its healing abilities before the rise of the American Medical Association in the USA--the AMA effectively shut down Homeopathy as a widely-available and acceptable practice in the early 1900's by accusing those who practiced it of medical quackery. The evidence as to its effectiveness, however, stills stands with those who practice and who use homeopathy.

Let me know how you go. I would love to encourage everyone to listen to their bodies. I wish I could express how great my turnaround has been, because I know a lot of people see alternative therapies as being a bit of "fluff," so-to-speak, but it's amazing how they can help even in such difficult situations as having a prolapsed disc.

I wish you all the best!

Blessings,
Sakinah

P.S. This was taken from an article entitled "Real Medicine or Empty Promises?"
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/096_home.html

"Jennifer Jacobs, M.D., who has a family practice and is licensed to practice homeopathy in Washington state, spends at least an hour and a half with each new patient. "What I do is review the lifetime history of the patient's health," she explains. "Also I ask a lot of questions about certain general symptoms such as food preferences and sleep patterns that usually aren't seen as important in conventional medicine. In looking to make the match between the person and the remedy, I need to have all of this sort of information."

Why does someone trained in conventional medicine turn to homeopathy? "With chronic illnesses such as arthritis and allergies, conventional medicine has solutions that help control the symptoms but you don't really see the patients getting better," says Jacobs. "What I have seen in my homeopathic work is that it really does seem to help people get better. I'm not saying I can cure everyone but I do see where people's overall health is improved over the course of treatment."

Jacobs' hasn't abandoned conventional medicine completely. "My daughter is 17 and she's never taken antibiotics, but I would have no hesitation to use antibiotics if she had pneumonia, or meningitis, or a kidney infection," says Jacobs."

Also, this article is highly interesting and probably a bit surprising for some to realize the rise of the AMA and how it disproved osteopathic and homeopathic treatments through propaganda in their early days:
"How the American Medical Association Got Rich"
http://stanford.wellsphere.com/chronic-pain-article/how-the-ama-mal...