Hi everyone!!!

This is Dr. David Middaugh, Physical Therapist at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy.

We specialize in helping people in El Paso to get off pain medication, avoid surgery and keep up active lifestyles.

I have a question for you….

“Are you thinking of getting surgery?”

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Surgery is definitely something scary to consider. But if you’ve been told that you need it, please trust your surgeon.

We’re very fortunate here in the US to have access to great surgeons that have the best training in the world. We know that they’ll take good care of us in the event that we do need surgery.

One of the most common problems we see our clients for is low back pain.

Our clients commonly have had MRIs where they’ve found disc problems.

The first logical thought our clients have is “I might need surgery to fix the disc problem”.

But before thinking more about surgery, consider this interesting point….

How did you get the disc problem to begin with?

That’s a question that needs to be addressed WHETHER OR NOT you decide to have surgery.

We’ve seen too many clients that have had a disc surgery in the past several years (sometimes they’ve had more than one) and are thinking of getting another one because they’re still dealing with back pain.

“Why does that happen?!?!?”

Are you just surgery prone?

Are you just disc herniation prone?

I don’t think so….there’s got to be something else going on.

Most of the time when we see clients with disc problems, we also find that they have a muscle imbalance and very poor coordination.

We work to address that problem naturally.

For someone with muscle imbalances and poor coordination, a surgery is only going to be a temporary fix.

Here as El Paso Manual Physical Therapy, we are into the long term fixes — the natural CURE.

We teach you what to do so that you’re not having this problem again.

We encourage you to come and talk to us and find out if there’s a natural way to fix your issue.

Some of the most common that we can treat and help prevent surgery are:

• Disc problems in the back
• Meniscus injuries in the knees
• Pinched nerves in the back

If you’ve got crunchy knees and you think your cartilage might need to get “cleaned out”, you might be able to resolve it WITHOUT an invasive surgery.

As I said earlier, we have great surgeons in the US and the likelihood of something going wrong during surgery is extremely small…

BUT….

Keep in mind the side effects of surgery:

• Infection
• Problems healing
• Too much scar tissue build up
• Medication side effects
• Missed time from work/family
• Expensive

That being said, if you need it…you need it.

And it can really improve your quality of life.

Or even save your life.

Here’s an interesting article discussing the placebo effects of disc surgeries in the spine and meniscus surgeries in the knee.

Thanks for reading!

This is Dr. David, Physical Therapist at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy.

Have a great day!