If you ever had any type of surgery, you know it isn’t fun. I’m not talking about wisdom teeth extractions or treatment in the doctor office that he/she called a “small procedure,” I’m talking about going into a hospital, being put to sleep , and having a surgical procedure done to repair an injury in your body. Afterwards, comes the long, painful recovery period which depending on your injury and how the surgery went, can range from weeks to months and even years. However, is surgery needed for every injury, even if the doctor says it is an option. I’m going to address the issue of when is surgery actually needed and give some alternative option you should explore yourself to decide if having surgery really is the answer you are looking for.

I don’t necessarily believe surgery is the answer for everything.

Let me first tell you my experience so you have an idea of where I’m coming from. For myself, I’ve had four major surgeries in my life all on my right shoulder, besides the traditional of wisdom teeth extraction (like I said, I don’t consider that major surgery). Like most, I trusted my orthopedic surgeon who suggested surgery was my only option to live the lifestyle I was accustomed to having, so at 24 years of age, I had my first real operation to repair a SLAP tear of my labrum located in my right shoulder. I won’t get into too much medical detail but your labrum is firm tissue, which helps keep your arm bone inside the shoulder socket.

Post-Op, I did physical therapy three times a week and actually started to heal a lot faster than doctors figured I would. Usually, labral tears require 3-4 months with recovery depending on the severity; sometimes 6-9 months, and I was figured to have done enough damage to be in the 9-month range, but at 3 months, I started to springboard in therapy and regain my strength faster than the therapists could figure out.

Four months out, I was back to lifting empty unweighted barbells under the supervision of my physical therapist and orthopedic surgeon who was astonished at how quickly I had recovered, but soon another problem occurred. I had a bone spur develop on my clavicle which caused me pain on the same right shoulder.

My surgeon suggested I go under the knife again and I did, although this time didn’t go as smoothly.

I developed a staph infection and underwent two more surgeries to treat it, eventually being hospitalized for a few days and ultimately causing me pain to this day. I had three surgeries in a matter of five weeks and yet, almost 3 years later, still am in constant chronic pain in my right shoulder; just think about that for a second.

Surgery can be a tricky question. For anyone who isn’t the injured person, surgery is easy. The surgery itself is simple; a few hours out of the day and it’s over. You go back to the doctor for a checkup once or twice and then go to physical therapy whereas you’ll spend most of your recovery time. For the doctor, it’s a huge payday, even with insurance. Doctors are like machines; they are always so quick to advise surgery, it’s not their fault; it’s all they know. Doctors are programmed to see a problem, fix it, and send you on your way.

The tricky part is for the patient and the recovery of how and when or if you’ll be exactly where you were or better before you had gotten injured. The main objective is to fix the injured part but no doctor can promise risk free surgery or guarantee you will bounce back better than ever from it.

There is a new approach to the question of having surgery which physical therapists are suggesting and that is, even before you see an orthopedist, having an initial evaluation by a physical therapist. Before you run to the doctor, try physical therapy because most places will give you an initial assessment without a doctor’s note needed and they should be more than equipped to tell you if your injury is serious enough for a doctor to be involved at all, much less surgery.

A lot of injuries can be solved with surgery but a lot of the time as well, surgery isn’t and shouldn’t be considered as the first option.

I advise you to use your judgment for this because there is a difference between a nagging pain and a complete and utter tear which will require immediate surgery. You might very well have torn something but the damage might be minimal and going in for surgery wouldn’t make sense for you. Surgery is trauma to the body no matter how small the procedure is and if you can ever fix the problem without being cut open, why wouldn’t you?

Quality of life should also be considered when discussing the issue of having surgery. Can you still do your daily job or duties to the best of your ability if you do not have surgery? If you can answer yes, then don’t have surgery right away just because a doctor suggested that it’s an option. If you’re an athlete whose sports career is impacted or someone who is generally affected daily by the injury and simply are in too much pain, then surgery becomes more of an option, but I still advise you to seek out a physical therapist and try to work around having surgery, leaving surgery to be the last option having tried everything else first.

Depending on your age, physical fitness level, and overall health, having surgery can leave you worse off than before since you might not recover as well as you had hoped and surgeries always run of a risk of something going wrong. How is your quality of life and how much of it is impacted from this injury or diagnosis?

Explore, research, and make sure you invest all options before having surgery because this is your body and no one else is going to take as much interest in yourself besides yourself.

Physical therapy can seem tedious and tiring; most people don’t have patience to wait to let your body heal. They opt for surgery which physically makes you wait and justify having surgery because “the doctor said so,” which potentially leaves you never the same again. Those same people who claim the doctor knows all never do their own research because majority of them would find surgery wasn’t necessary at all, majority, not all people.

Doctors do not always make the pain go away and too often, we all run to them the moment anything hurts. We don’t try to figure out what really hurts and exactly what caused it; instead we run to get an MRI and sign up for surgery when the doctor says, “we might have something here but it’s tricky and I would need to perform surgery to get a better look.”

Personally, I don’t get the blind faith we have in doctors to fix all our pains without truly exploring all of the options.

Besides, you’ll only end up spending majority of your recovery with a physical therapist anyway, NOT your surgeon.

For more information on therapy first, you can visit sites like www.clinicalathlete.com and check out all of their therapists around you so that you can do your due diligence.

I should also point out that physical therapists and personal trainers are NOT the same thing so don’t go run to a gym thinking a trainer can fix you; some trainers could help and there are great ones out there who are very knowledgeable, but physical therapists just have more schooling in this area and it’s no contest usually.

Make sure you are well informed and can make an decision which best suits you and your needs. The right answer might not always be running to the doctor; rather it might be the help of a physical therapist. Therapy can be rewarding to fix your injury without ever going under the knife leaving you grateful that you don’t have a nagging pain from surgery or a gross scar during beach season.

Unless you have a traumatic injury requiring immediate surgery, try everything you can before having surgery.

There's so many options. There's physical therapy, acupuncture, massage therapists, or the occasional voodoo priest (hey, I’ve heard they have a following,) because surgery might prove to be an unnecessary adventure which you do not have to explore.