Joints are essential pieces of the human body enabling us to run, jump, bend, and twist. Joints, along with the muscles that move them, are indispensable and allow us to work and play every day of our lives. But joints do fail. Both the beautiful joints we are born with - that are amazingly complex and simple at the same time - and the over 1 million artificial joints that surgeons implant into Americans each year.
Ned Kehde is an avid fisherman who has done Postural Alignment Therapy (Egoscue) to stay pain free and active as he gets older. In an article from In-Fisherman magazine he talks about what he has seen with joint replacements:
Ned Kehde is an avid fisherman who has done Postural Alignment Therapy (Egoscue) to stay pain free and active as he gets older. In an article from In-Fisherman magazine he talks about what he has seen with joint replacements:
My wife, Pat, and I are in our seventies. During the past decade and a half, an astonishing number of our friends, acquaintances and family members have had hip and knee replacements, as well as back, shoulder, elbow and wrist surgeries.
It has almost become a fad. For instance, one of Pat’s bridge-playing acquaintances told her that he and his wife have had five hip and four knee replacements, and he hinted that they expected that another replacement might be in the offing.
After our friends have endured the grueling aspects of the surgery and weeks or even months of physical therapy sessions, some of them are still bothered with pain and use assorted pharmaceutical products to dull it.
I don't think joint replacement is a fad, but it is a procedure that is expected to continue to grow at astronomical rates. The annual number of primary knee and hip replacements together is projected to be more than 4 million by 2030. Primary means first time replacement, and if artificial joints continue to fail and be recalled in similar percentages as they have in a last couple years, the number of joint revision surgeries could be over 10 million annually by 2030.
Not only are the number of joint replacement surgeries going up fast, but they are drastically out of proportion to our population growth and when compared to other countries. A really good question for our society to look at is: Why is it that we are so quick to replace joints?
Not only are the number of joint replacement surgeries going up fast, but they are drastically out of proportion to our population growth and when compared to other countries. A really good question for our society to look at is: Why is it that we are so quick to replace joints?
In the article, Ned continued:
We also noticed that surgery didn’t significantly improve our acquaintances’ sense of well-being and nimbleness. Therefore, we couldn’t understand why anyone would opt for surgery. And across the years, our anti-surgery perspectives are doubly reinforced when we read front page stories in the “New York Times,” such as the one that appeared on Dec. 28, 2011, proclaiming that “artificial hip failures [are] expected to cost billions” and the one about problematic hip implants on Feb. 15, 2011.
Coupled by what we witnessed and read, we gradually came to the conclusion that we wanted to avoid surgery and pain killers. Because we have always had minor proclivities to be health-food and alternative medicine advocate, it seemed to be an intuitive decision.
If getting a hip or knee replacement fixed the problem, how come, as Ned says, so many people end of having the same joint replaced several times and why does the pain not go away after surgery? Ned talks about a couple he knows that has had 5 hip replacements when the most hip joints I’ve ever seen two people have is 2 each or 4. So at least one of them had a hip replaced twice. I have a client who had 5 hip replacements in 6 or 7 years on one hip! Each surgeon just said the last one didn’t use the correct prosthetic implant or did the surgery incorrectly, but each one ended up with a “failed” joint and another surgery in the end. By coming in to see me and learning the true reason why her artificial hips failed, and by then correcting the underlying postural imbalances, she is not only pain free for the first time in years, but has peace of mind knowing she won't be needing another hip replacement anytime in the near future.
Are surgeons really that bad at what they do and are the prosthetic implants that primitive? No, I don’t think so. I think 95% of people who get joint replacements don’t do anything about the underlying cause of the arthritic joint and pain and because they don’t take the time to figure out and correct what the cause of the hip or knee arthritis was in the first place, the problem is still there getting bigger all the time - waiting to show up as pain, limitation, or a failed implant or surgery.
If you have had a hip or knee replacement and are still in pain, have been told you need a joint replacement but would like to avoid it, or have had a failed implant or surgery and would like to learn about the underlying cause and a simple and easy way to fix it, contact me today and I'd be happy to help you figure out the root cause of the problem.
Are surgeons really that bad at what they do and are the prosthetic implants that primitive? No, I don’t think so. I think 95% of people who get joint replacements don’t do anything about the underlying cause of the arthritic joint and pain and because they don’t take the time to figure out and correct what the cause of the hip or knee arthritis was in the first place, the problem is still there getting bigger all the time - waiting to show up as pain, limitation, or a failed implant or surgery.
If you have had a hip or knee replacement and are still in pain, have been told you need a joint replacement but would like to avoid it, or have had a failed implant or surgery and would like to learn about the underlying cause and a simple and easy way to fix it, contact me today and I'd be happy to help you figure out the root cause of the problem.
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