Back Surgery: More Damage Than Benefit....According to DOCTORS

When even the medical experts say that it's OK to say "no" to surgery, I'll listen. So should you. Another New York Times piece, this from the Economix blog titled "Saying No to Back Surgery," confirms what I've felt intuitively for a long time: if your surgeon recommends a complication back surgery, politely decline. It comes from a study by a doctor at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon. He finds:

"More complex procedures were associated with greater complications, mortality, hospital charges, and other measures of health care use, even after adjustment for patient demographic and clinical characteristics. Age was less predictive than comorbidity or type of surgical procedure…"

What that basically says is this: if your surgeon is recommending a complex surgery on your back --, back away, because you're more likely to have more problems afterward than you had before surgery....more complications, higher possibility of death, higher bills from your hospital and more of everything else that the health-care system can throw at your (rehab, drugs, etc..)...most of it expensive).

It's no surprise that back surgeries also cost more than they ever did, and that's what might be the carrot for doctors: the chance to make more money. Don't give them the opportunity, especially if you love your back. (You wouldn't believe some of the emails I get from people who have terrible, awful, horrible stories of backs and lives that have been damaged by back surgeries gone wrong. I would love to help them, but in many cases, the tissue is so compromised that my stretches are a shot in a dark).

What to do instead
If your back hurts, quit leaning on one leg more than another. Stand on both legs. And if it still hurts, get down on the floor and do a few Rossiter System techniques on it. And get out and WALK!!!!