23 Jun Studies show Arthroscopic Surgery no better than plecebo!
In July 2002, research showed that arthoscopic surgeries worked as well as shame (fake) sureries where as effective as the real thing! Half the pateints got real arthroscopic surgery and the placebo group got 2 holes poked and they pretended to fix it. These people had as good or better results then the surgery pateints. Many people that had the real surgery had there “bad old” knee returned with a vengeance months or a year or so later. The goal of these surgeries is to clean out debris from the knee joint in an effort to repair the knee. The surgery is usually based on finding from an MRI. There are currently 500,000 performed each year. Lets face it when you tear your knee up from an accedent, skiing or such, thank godness for a great surgeon! Here we are talking about thousands of surgeries each year that studies have shown aren’t effective. So often I see pateints haveing treatments that are more lucrative for the doctors vs whats really best for the pateint. It seems that there must be a less invasive alternative to releive your knee pain.I always think back to the three basics with any joint pain I see in my office: STRUCTURE, , FUNCTION and INTEGRETY. Is the knee or whatever joint in the body positioned correctly (Structure)? Does the joint have friction free effortless motion and balanced musculature (function)? Is there any tissues that are damaged that might be causing pain that could be stimulated to heal (integrity)? If all of these factors are considered than you will have the best chance to have a healthy joint. Many times new therapies such as prolotherapy, or the new generation of class 4 lasers can quickly help damaged tissues such as cartilage, ligaments, and tendons. This will provide for less pain when stregthening and alignment are then addressed. It’s not any one therapy that seems to be the majic bullet, it’s the blend of the right ones for each individual pateint that really makes a difference. Before considering any surgeries it would be best to get the advise from someone who specializes in conservitive treatment, your surgeon might not be a specialist in that area therefore unable to best advise you of ALL of your options. What do you think a peach farmer would say if you asked him if you should eat more peaches? Probably YES! The same could apply to a health care specialist towards there specialty.
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