Complications
Complications are unintended and often undesirable outcomes that can occur during medical procedures or treatments. They can range from minor issues to more serious adverse events and may arise due to various factors such as underlying health conditions, surgical errors, or reactions to medications. Understanding complications is crucial for healthcare providers to anticipate risks, mitigate potential harms, and ensure patient safety.
Subscribe to the BlogThe Side Effects of Orthopedic Surgery: Doubling Down at the Great Orthopedic Surgery Casino
What are the side effects of orthopedic surgery? One of the more disturbing things we see in interventional orthopedics is patients who have undergone multiple aggressive types of orthopedic surgery. The behavior is a bit like a gambler at a casino. If you don’t hit it big the first time, keep doubling down until you…read more
Xiphoidalgia: Should We Cut Out the Xiphoid?
I’ve had a disconcerting brush with what I called “ectomy” pain treatment through the years. My first experience was meeting a patient with testicular pain who had them removed to try and help his agony. This procedure, of course, didn’t work, so that’s why he came to see me. More recently, a patient came in with many…read more Statin Cholesterol Drugs Poison Fast Twitch Muscle Fibers
Americans have an exercise problem. I remember a trip to Italy with my family a few years back and seeing an 80-year-old woman haul her groceries back from the store. I remember these active seniors of my childhood, but this Italian woman would have been such an out-of-place sight in most US suburbs that she…read more LASER Spine Surgery Side Effects: Meet the Thoracodorsal Fascia
Have you seen those new compression garments athletes wear to try to improve performance? The idea is that by adding compression to the muscles, the ultratight shirts and pants will make the muscles contract better. This concept has been around for a while; it’s called fascia. Every muscle in your body is already surrounded by fascia that…read more What Percentage is “Useless Orthopedic Surgery” Based on Research?
This is a post that some orthopedic surgeons will hate but that needs to be written. This week, I decided to try and estimate the number of orthopedic surgeries that were still being done despite research showing they didn’t work. When I was done, I realized that a staggering 53% of orthopedic surgeries being performed…read more Side Effects of Steroids: Joint Replacement Infections AGAIN…
I’ve blogged quite a bit on the inconvenient truth that while steroid medications are powerful anti-inflammatories that are commonly used without much medical thought, they’re really bad for your body. As one example, a prior highlighted study had shown that getting a hip steroid shot increases the likelihood that a hip replacement surgery will fail…read more Hand Surgery Side Effects That Can Easily Be Avoided…
If you’ve ever wondered why sometimes I seem to be a bit “anti-surgery,” you would only need to spend a day with me in clinic to find out why. We see surgery train wrecks day in and day out. What makes them so upsetting is that most of the time, the surgery could have been…read more New Craniosacral Therapy Research—This Duck Doesn’t Quack Anymore
We MDs can be arrogant idiots at times, but that often hides that we don’t know what we don’t know. Case in point is our attitude toward alternative medicine. As an example, I can remember my medical-school education as being very antichiropractic. In addition, practicing close to one of the alternative-medicine capitals of the world,…read more 
