BG-3: 11 Things Your Doctor Hasn’t Told You

11 Things Your Surgeon Hasn’t Told You

In the 10+ years of working as a physical therapist, I’ve had plenty of one-on-one and group conversations with my patients in rehab.  And over the past number of years of working with people on their health and fitness related goals, it was no different.

Some of the conversations that I had with them, in both cases, were somewhat small talk in nature, me getting to know them and they getting to know me.  Often-times, however, our conversations had a good deal of meaning and value.  And often times the conversations lead to what got them into the predicament in the first place and what they could do to be and do better.

And as we started talking more about fitness, muscle and joint aches, pains, injuries and surgeries I discovered one thing…that many of the people that I worked with were relatively uninformed.

During our conversations, I often heard, “I never knew that,” or,  “no one ever told me that.”  So I started making a list of what they did not know.  Here are the most common things that that they were either never told or completely misunderstood:

1.  Even if we operate, you still might have pain.

2.  We’ll operate here, but the root of the problem is probably coming from somewhere else

3.  When we operate here, it affects other areas of the body too

4.  You’ll never be 100% again.  90? 95?  maybe, but never 100.

5.  A well designed exercise program may be a better option for you than surgery

6.  The injections that you get are only bandaids and will not fix the problem by themselves

7.  All exercises are not created equal as some exercises are better than others when it comes to pain management

8.  Surgeons don’t always know what those exercises are (see #7)

9.  Losing weight and staying physically active can help reduce your aches and pains

10.  Even after an operation, if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, chances are you will have to come back and see me again…for something else

11.  The shoes that you wear can have a huge impact on your aches and pains, even if the pain you are having is in your shoulders.

Coach Tim