NO MORE SURGERY!

From: Karla N (ifirgit@yahoo.com)
Wed Mar 27 22:57:04 2002


I know many people on here have been through the process of having to decide whether or not they should have surgery for their adhesions. Pain is an awful thing. I would like to explain my opinion and perhaps people will understand better.

There are many, many doctors in this country that feel that they can perform an adhesiolysis and you know what? They can. The question is, can they perform it adequately so that your adhesions are gone permanently or so that they are at least diminished substantially and no adhesions reform. There is one doctor who offers a cure in thirteen surgeries. Do you want to go through that? Many people are learning, after trips to the best doctors in the world...both here in this country and overseas that perhaps their pain hasn't been from adhesions or that the pain that they have now isn't from adhesions. We are learning that many of the people seeking treatment at even the best places have another pain....pain caused from the cutting of our tissues. Some people are developing the most debilitating pain from this. We have had people have surgery in Scranton and go to Germany only to learn that they had either very minimal reformation of adhesions or none at all. They are learning that their pain is from the incisions. There is no cure for that. But still, if we feel that we have to have surgery....that we cannot live with the pain (I am talking about everyone...people who have not been to Scranton or Germany) then you are doing yourself a disservice by having surgery performed by an unskilled physician. These doctors do think they know what they are doing....but either they don't or they don't want to take the time to meticulously take each adhesion down and remove each little speck of blood or other matter. This lengthens the surgery time by hours. Insurance only pays roughly $2500 for an adhesiolysis. If you were a doctor would you accept that amount if you stood in the operating room for ten hours? I would probably try and do as many surgeries as possible instead of one major procedure that I'm not really making money on. Its a shame that its about money....but that's life. Everyone who I know who has gone to Scranton or New York before the move had a procedure that lasted a minimum of four hours. One woman was in excess of ten hours. All of these women are relatively painfree in comparison to how they were prior to the surgery. All of them had undergone lysis of adhesions prior only to have the pain return.

If you are to go to a surgeon who doesn't use quite the right procedure your adhesions WILL return worse than they were before....because you have now given them another area to form. The pain will be worse and what will you have gained? Yes, you might have a couple of months pain free....perhaps even a year or so (I haven't heard anyone say that it has been that long when they have had prior surgeries). But, when it returns and is worse and causes further problems what have you gained?

Believe me, I can't tell you enough that I have made these same mistakes. I am not a doctor...but I am someone that is going to die because I allowed my doctor to convince me 27 times that I needed surgery. Not one of those surgeries was to prevent a life threatening situation...well I must take that back....I did have a few procedures to correct some major errors that they made that would have caused my death if nothing was done. I am trying to reach out to you and ask you to educate yourself about adhesions. Read everything there is to read. Read every story on the quilt. Unless you are seeking surgery from one of the very few doctors in this world who has had any success chances are likely that you will end up worse off. Is this what you want? Why bother having the surgery? Please think about this: I am 45 years old. I have one daughter and two beautiful granddaughters who I adore so much. My life could end any day and I will be unable to spend another day with my family. Do you want to have this happen to you? What about your family? How would they feel? If you won't think about yourself, think about them! Each additional surgery that you go through brings you that much closer to death. If you don't have a bowel obstruction or another life threatening condition you don't need the surgery! Ask your doctor....will I die tomorrow if I don't have this surgery? How about next week or next month? I wish that I had looked at each surgery this way. I wish that I could take it all back. But I can't. The only thing that I can do is try and prevent each of you from making the same mistake. I never thought that I could live with my pain. But I have done so for three years now. Yes, I am now on morphine, but I am for the most part pretty comfortable. I would rather take the narcotics then die because I had one too many surgeries. I have had 28 since 1991...over 50 in my life...but that doesn't mean that you could have that many. It doesn't mean that you won't die on your fifth procedure. I have actually almost died three times...because of things like my heart stopping on the operating table. Not to mention the times when I became critically ill following some of the surgeries. The only thing I can say is that I don't want this to happen to even one of you. Please understand, it isn't about knowing it all...its about caring and loving.

God Bless,

Karla

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