Hi friends,

Throughout our lives, most of us will undergo at least one surgery. Modern surgical procedures are truly amazing and save lives every day.

But when it comes to correcting musculoskeletal injuries, I still think they are overused and misinterpreted as an unequivocal solution for the treatment of pain.

I’ll use myself as an example. When I was fourteen, I had knee pain that had been bothering me for months. The orthopedic surgeon recommended arthroscopic surgery to “clean out” the knee joint.

Using surgery as a primary solution to treat a teenager’s knee pain is ludicrous. Knowing what I know now, I would go back and say no to the surgery and try a course of physical therapy.

Opening up my knee years ago increases my likelihood of getting osteoarthritis later in my life.

Orthopedic surgery can be beneficial for people who have sustained traumatic injuries, and for those who have exhausted other options. But it should not be the first line of thinking for most people with musculoskeletal pain.

Physical therapy has been shown to be just as effective as surgery in the following diagnoses: meniscal tears, disc degenerative disease, shoulder impingement, rotator cuff tears, and even ACL tears.

So next time you have an aching body part, talk to your physician about physical therapy. And by all means, if physical therapy does not improve your symptoms, then surgery may be a legitimate consideration.

As always, life is rarely black and white. Most of life is lived in the grey, so each person should weigh both surgical and conservative treatment. But in my opinion, conservative therapy should be the first choice more often than not.

Until next week,

Kevin