Why has your doctor never heard of Prolotherapy!
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"Operations are what I do," Believe it or not, one of my recent new prolotherapy patients was given the above quoted statement as an explanation for why the surgeon he was consulting did not offer any alternative treatments for his back pain.
Unfortunately, as the present case illustrates, many physicians just “do what they do” and never research any of the alternatives that are available to the patients.
Patients often ask me why other doctors are not familiar with Prolotherapy, and especially why orthopedists do not perform it.
Why has your doctor never heard of Prolotherapy!
1. The other doctor has not been exposed to Prolotherapy because his/her specialty does not expose him/her to it. If a physician is a surgeon, he/she does surgery to eliminate pain. If the physician is rheumatologist, he/she will look for rheumatologic causes for your pain. Our physicians at Caring Medical took the time to explore alternative options for treating pain other than the traditional NSAIDS, physical therapy, icing, and eventual surgery.
2. Another is this. Doctors do like helping people. But most doctors only use the tools they learned during their residencies, and will not stray beyond those standard tools for fear of being labeled an alternative healer. This reminds me of a meeting of cardiologists I read about a number of years back. Someone asked the group of doctors how many of them were taking vitamin E themselves. A large proportion of the group raised their hands. Then when asked how many of the doctors were recommending vitamin E for their patients, almost nobody raised their hands.
In reality, in today's disease care system, a specialist cannot incorporate non-standard therapies into his practice because indeed, his referrals from other doctors will in fact dry up sooner rather than later if he does. To be a "respected" member of today's medical establishment requires a mind numbing lack of imagination and intellect in the rote application of only standard therapies. Some doctors are unwilling or unable to take these risks.
3. Finally, it is generally true that if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem you see is going to start looking like a nail. Applying inappropriate or even dangerous therapies that don't work is accepted in our health care system. Physicians are judged by the "standard of care" rule. In essence, as long as a doctor is using the same therapies other doctors are using, then it doesn't matter that results are mediocre at best, or even that some patients are being damaged, because everyone else is getting those same results. This is not fair, it is not right, but it's just the way it is. At Caring Medical, we try to find treatments that are best for our patients – ones that are the most effective with the least amount of potential side effects.
I discuss this topic with you, my readers, because I want you to understand how it is in medicine today. The moral to be gleaned from this article is that not all physicians practice by the Hippocratic oath; that it is not just scientific validity or documented results from an operative procedure that guide the surgeon's hands, and that it is always wise to get second opinions for serious conditions, especially if the recommendation is for surgery.
In our practice at Caring Medical, we too are not free from all bias. We admittedly are inclined first to use the most natural, safest, and least invasive approach for the treatment of all human diseases. However, we utilize an exceptionally broad range of procedures and therapies, and we freely make referrals in those few cases when surgery becomes the only option, or when non-surgical specialists need to be involved in the case. In patients with musculoskeletal problems, Prolotherapy is such an awesomely effective treatment that we have no hesitation recommending it as a first line therapy.
The practice of medicine presents the bewildered patient with an amazing "marketplace of ideas" offering various approaches to their health problems. Seek out trustworthy guidance when you need to negotiate the high tech, highly dangerous health care maze – and a good place to do it is here!
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