These days, surgeries and medications are the solutions readily given for most problems. Snoring? Cut out excess tissues in the throat. Overweight? Staple the stomach. Ear infections? Insert tubes in the ears. Is your child hyper? Give them Ritalin. Feeling anxious or worrying? Take an antidepressant. The list, and the practice of it, goes on and on with little regard to other, less invasive options.
There is much media attention given to the overuse of medications by health care practitioners. What is often left unsaid is that these same medical professionals are overusing surgery at the same rate, if not greater, as that of medication.
The unnecessary use of surgery has been called an epidemic, one of barbaric proportions, which needlessly maims and kills patients. Most have heard the horror stories of doctors mistakenly operating on the wrong person or body part; mishaps like these are inevitable. However, it is not these types of events that make up the epidemic. It is the commonly practiced, "routine" surgeries that constitute the problem. Often times these procedures are not only unnecessary, but expensive, stressful, and dangerous as well. And, though they succeed in padding doctor’s wallets and raising health care costs, they often do not solve patients’ problems.
For example, studies show that many patients who have surgery for cataracts report that their eyesight is worse after the surgery. Moreover, reports indicate that as many as five out of six hysterectomies performed each year are unnecessary. More shocking still are data suggesting that 50 percent of mastectomies (the removal of a breast as a treatment for cancer) could have been prevented by using other treatment options.
Other procedures that are consistently performed in excessive numbers despite other options include gall bladder removal, prostate gland removal, cataract removal and removal of a damaged disc in the spine; low-back surgery, surgery for jaw pain and arthroscopic knee surgery; cesarean section; and total hip replacement.
Medical literature has warned that a high percentage of surgeries do not benefit the patients who receive them. The safeguards in place to prevent this type of epidemic, namely medical associations that are supposed to monitor ethics and guidelines, are not doing their job. So why are all of these surgeries being performed?
Knee Surgery
Earlier this year, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study on a knee scooping surgery for arthritis that exposes how 3 billion dollars a year is being wasted on this procedure, which relieves the problem no more than a placebo.
The operation, known as arthroscopic surgery, for pain and stiffness caused by osteoarthritis is performed on about 650,000 people in the U.S. every year, at a cost of about $5,000 per procedure.
As mentioned above, studies show that placebos had the same affect as the surgery, and placebos are a lot cheaper than $5,000 operations.
So what other options are there?
It is important to recognize that while the arthritis scooping did work for many people, so did the placebo. This is amazing testimony to the power your brain has at inducing healing changes in your body. The central question is how to harness this power without expensive medications or dangerous surgery.
Remember that whatever you focus your conscious attention on in the real world will typically be achieved. That is precisely what happened with this study. The patients truly believed that this expensive, invasive procedure would fix their problem, and superficially it appeared to do just that. The same thing happened, though, with those who received the placebo -- a placebo unknown to them, of course. What really healed their bodies were their own minds.
So here you have a real world study, published in a respected journal, providing the theoretical underpinnings of why EFT works. You can easily begin to harness the power of EFT by reviewing my free manual or for more in-depth knowledge you can purchase my EFT Series on DVD or VHS. There are also EFT clinicians who can help you to learn the methods individually.
There are, however, structural problems that can, at times, limit EFT from working. When this happens, following the eating plan and paying special attention to the fish oil recommendation will help the inflammation that accompanies arthritis.
The above study was only for knee arthritis, but the surgery referred to, arthroscopy, is also used for knee problems other than arthritis. In my office, instead of surgery, we employ a gentle massage technique from Australia called NST, which has proved highly effective for nearly all knee problems, including traumatic injury. We have rarely needed to refer patients with knee pain for surgical intervention.
NST helps the body actually repair and recover the damaged tissue. If you are interested in this procedure, please refer to our list of NST practitioners. Health care professionals should consider attending one of our NST training courses.
To conclude, here is what one of the leading EFT practitioners in the U.S., Dr. Patricia Carrington, recently wrote to me about her experiences with NST:
I want to thank you for steering me to NST via your website. I have now had three treatments of it (and will take more) and am finding it extraordinary, but in unexpected ways. I went to an advanced practitioner listed on your site who fortunately works only 30 minutes from me. I had scheduled the session because of a hiatus hernia which is quite troublesome for me, but the results came in other areas. Even after the first session my fingers loosened up so much that I am literally typing twice as fast at the keyboard, and using ALL of my fingers on it for the first time in my life actually -- a real joy -- and my walking is so improved But the most impressive thing, other than the gratifying sense of balance between left and right sides of my body that it has given me, is its mood elevating effect. I feel light and wonderfully happy even under stressful circumstances in what I can only describe as a "new" way. Dr. Patricia Carrington
I want to thank you for steering me to NST via your website. I have now had three treatments of it (and will take more) and am finding it extraordinary, but in unexpected ways. I went to an advanced practitioner listed on your site who fortunately works only 30 minutes from me.
I had scheduled the session because of a hiatus hernia which is quite troublesome for me, but the results came in other areas. Even after the first session my fingers loosened up so much that I am literally typing twice as fast at the keyboard, and using ALL of my fingers on it for the first time in my life actually -- a real joy -- and my walking is so improved
But the most impressive thing, other than the gratifying sense of balance between left and right sides of my body that it has given me, is its mood elevating effect. I feel light and wonderfully happy even under stressful circumstances in what I can only describe as a "new" way.
Dr. Patricia Carrington
Appendectomy
An appendectomy can save your life if you need it, but unnecessary surgery is clearly something that needs to be avoided. How do you know when your appendix might be a problem?
The following are three major clues:
If you have all of the above symptoms you will want to be evaluated at the nearest emergency room.
However, women tend to benefit from receiving a CT scan or ultrasound before surgery. The information below will lower a woman’s risk of having her appendix removed by 400 percent, so please remember these things:
Make sure the doctor does some type of imaging study such as a CT scan or Ultrasound prior to going to surgery.
A recent study with nearly 500 patients who underwent appendectomy determined that in women if a CT scan or ultrasound was done before the surgery, a healthy appendix was removed 7 percent of the time compared to 28 percent if a scan was not done. However, this lowered rate did not hold up in men or children.
Radiology October 2002;225(1):131-6
Hysterectomy
It is widely recognized that many hysterectomies are unnecessary. Well over half of them are done for uterine fibroids. Obstet Gynecol February 2000;95(2):199-205. This is usually due to estrogen excess, which can be balanced by a number of simple strategies including the following: