Last week I made a post on Facebook regarding a health issue I have faced this year. The number of friends that sent me private messages thanking me for raising awareness of the issue and sharing their own similar experiences was, in all honesty worrying. If such a small sample size (I keep my FB account only to people I personally know) could garner so much response, what is the real size of the problem? For those of you that have already read my FB post I apologise for the repetition below, however I will pull this back into a key few action points at the end...
I procrastinated for months over how to write the post. I believe that my message was important, but I wanted to avoid unfairly labelling a whole sector in the process of raising awareness.
About a year ago I injured my right shoulder. By March this year I had lost approx. 60% of the range of motion and was in constant pain so I went to a specialist here in Dubai where I live. I told him I didn’t want surgery and asked for my options.
He suggested a cortisol injection followed by physio which is what happened. It made absolutely no difference. In June I was in Hong Kong and went to one of the top orthopedic clinics. I showed the specialist the MRI and X-ray from Dubai and he told me I had a detached tendon on my bicep which was causing the pain, and that this required keyhole surgery to reconnect the tendon to my bicep.
I had resigned myself to requiring surgery and the 12-month recuperation process that would involve. No golf, skiing or playing catch with my daughter for at least a year.
A month later I was in London and decided to take a 3rd opinion at the Fortius Clinic which is one of the top sports injury clinics in the UK. The specialist looked at the same MRI and X-ray, examined my range of movement and pain threshold just as the HK surgeon had done (which was now worse than it had been then), and concluded it was unlikely I needed surgery. She referred me to one of the surgeons whom I met two weeks later.
Using ultrasound (an option I was not offered in either Dubai or HK) he showed me that my bicep tendon was perfectly attached and the reason for my pain was a 3mm piece of calcium which was grating every time I moved my arm upwards, back or sideways. Using an ultrasound guided needle and in front of my eyes, he broke the small piece of calcium into tiny fragments which later dissolved (that’s the photo attached). In 5 minutes the pain was gone and after 3 months of physio I now have full strength and 95% range of motion. No need for surgery.
To quote the surgeon when I told him about the Hong Kong recommendation for surgery, he said “it’s a racket over there, they just want your insurance money”. He also told me that by injecting me “blindly” (ie without ultrasound), the Dubai surgeon had placed the injection in totally the wrong place.
I am enormously relieved and grateful that I avoided surgery and all the potential issues that can follow. While I would like to believe that all medical professionals act in the best interests of their patients, it’s clear that the system is open to abuse and some put financial gain first.
So what are the morals of this story? There are many so let me touch on the most pertinent..
1. Remember that people may give inaccurate advice no matter how experienced they are. Whether intentional or by mistake, we can be pointed in the wrong direction by someone we trust. Often that trust is based on relationship, other times it is based on the authority conveyed by their profession or position such as with doctors, lawyers, bankers etc.
2. Following on from #1, it is our responsibility to do our own research, talk to trusted advisors who we know have our best interests first, and who have sufficient knowledge of the situation, and to get a second or in my case, third opinion. If we don’t do this and things turn out badly, we can only blame ourselves. I have got this wrong soooo many times in my life however fortunately my mistakes have been financial errors in judgement and not health related. I say ‘fortunately’ because we can always make the money that we lost back. With our health we may not get a second chance.
3. Finally, when deciding the degree to which you need to research a decision, consider the magnitude of getting it right or wrong. The majority of the decisions we make do not require the input of others and our productivity would halt if we stopped to do what I am suggesting every day. However, when anything has long term ramifications such as significant financial commitments, decisions on a child’s education, health related etc, then it is well worth analysing the situation and considering your options before pulling the trigger.
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