Surgery, scars, sex and politics!
Surgery, scars, sex and politics: How surgery and scars effect your body and mind.
Trauma often leads to surgery and sometimes surgery is absolutely necessary. But surgery is traumatic. It stresses the nervous system, the local tissues, the structure and functions of the body. Being put under the influence of anesthesia can also be stressful. Cutting the body while it is unconscious is stressful to the subconscious mind. Trauma that gets registered in the body while unconscious has as much impact on the nervous system as while conscious.
Don’t get me wrong sometimes surgery is necessary and lifesaving. It can help us walk and think and live an almost normal life again after trauma, illness and debilitation. Good surgeons can cut and paste very well. Orthopedic surgery is one of the things our Western Medicine does very well. But there are many unmentioned side effects to some surgeries.
All organs are vital pieces of the warming, blood circulating engine. Organs create, communicate, circulate and produce chemicals, hormones and neurotransmitters. When they are gone, so is the hardware and software communication function and structure. Each case is different but if you think about having organs removed, uterus or gall bladder for instance, you are having the hardware, the energy generators of chi, blood, hormones and body fluids removed from the overall engine of your body.
Since mental health and mood is related to chemicals, hormones and neurotransmitters, part of your body mind is gone when you remove organs. Part of your emotional generating and balancing hardware is gone. The life energy and consciousness transcribing hardware and software of your organs has been removed. This creates huge changes in the overall mental state and vitality.
Removing organs is not the best solution. Certainly in emergencies we need to act to remove organs, appendix, gall bladder and others. If we could preventatively heal and re balance the organs to avoid surgery, that would be the best option. It’s challenging but if caught early enough prevention and therapy with diet, exercise, acupuncture, fasting, PT, massage, sauna, herbs and other therapies can detox organs from inflammation and heal. These are both long term lifestyle strategies and therapies and some sort term alternatives.
I have seen the damage from surgeries
I see problems after gastric bypass, and lap band surgeries. Lap band surgery removes or constricts stomachs, reducing appetite by removing most of the stomach and reducing one’s ability to take in nourishment to feed one’s self. Gone is the ability to receive and make nutrients that build blood, bones and teeth, hair and brain. I have seen many of these clients suffer malnutrition in the form of withering muscles, brittle bones, bad teeth, hair loss, structural issues, cognitive issues, pain in joints, anxiety, depression and brain fog. How can one expect to remove half of the gas tank and expect our human engines to run with out fuel?
I commonly see clients with digestive problems after gall bladder surgery because they do not have a way to shuttle fat soluble toxins into the small intestine. The detox mechanism and fat digestion mechanism has been compromised. Gone is the lubrication of the bowel with bile and gone are it’s antimicrobial properties. While the gall bladder was probably compromised to begin with, now this function permanently impaired. Preventatively if caught early enough, with diet changes, exercise, sauna, fasting, herbs and acupuncture one can detoxify the gall bladder and get rid of stones and congestion.
For women having hysterectomies, I often hear them say they feel like they have lost their creativity, inspiration and a piece of themselves they can’t seem to get back. Women say they feel depressed and never regain the same sense of themselves they had before. These common emotional side effects are accompanied by lower back pain, constipation and other lower body functional issues. Gone are the major energy generators and blood flow stimulators and warmers of the abdomen and lower back.
A shock to the system and lack of functional engines leads to a slow down of the remaining organs and bodily functions. Local organ functions, blood circulation, waste removal and nourishment has been eliminated and impaired. This has huge systemic impact. If caught early enough complimentary medicine like acupuncture, diet changes, herbs, homeopathy, exercise, therapy and naturopathy can offer women good choices for natural health care support through out their lifetime.
Breast implants have their problems. The blockage of energy from the foreign body in the chest area often leads to shoulder pain, scapula and upper back pain. Implants have had problems with the breakdown and leaking particles which when released and absorbed into the body cause allergy, inflammation and autoimmune reactions. The immune system is affected by the breakdown and absorption of micro particles, chemicals and foreign substances. Some studies suggest they are linked to cancer.
Joint surgeries and replacements tend to have fewer problems because they do not impact total physiological functioning. Surgery and joint implants impact the skeletal aspect of the body that can cascade to overall imbalance of the structure of the body. If physical therapists miss the subtle structural changes that hip or knee replacements can do, a ricocheting tension and torsion effect on the joints can leave permanent distortions in the structural alignment and cause pain and dys-function.
Some people are sensitive to titanium. Patients can have sensitivity and micro allergies to titanium. Implants can be landing pads for microbes because the body’s normal immune function does not reach them. Stealth pathogens can live on implants causing local swelling and pain. Microbes can thrive sub-clinically not causing obvious infection but yet causing pain and swelling or general weakened immune function. The immune system is not designed to reach the metal implants. Metal is affected by changes in temperature. People with metal implants are often affected by cold weather aches and pains in their joint replacement areas.
Mesh is another problem. It can move and obstruct movement of tissues, blood circulation and body fluids. They can create adhesions and scar tissue that can cause pain. You can watch the mesh surgery advertisements by lawyers on late night TV, advertising their services for people injured by mesh implants.
These days when patients fracture their wrist, shin bones or ankles the metal plates go in, instead of casting the bone fractures and allowing them to heal naturally over time. Unfortunately no one is given the opportunity to heal slowly and naturally. These metal plates cause obstruction in range of movement. They cause blockage of the normal circulating, warming and nourishing blood flow. This often leads to pain and stiffness.
Scar tissue is another big problem.
Scar tissue hardening can also block and short circuit the normal energy flow. The body runs on direct current electrical energy. It is this energy that drives all of your body functions. Cell membranes, cellular metabolism, all nutrition and waste removal, this is all run by the charge of positive and negative direct current.
Trauma, injury, surgery and the resulting scar tissue can damage natural charge and circuitry of the cells and tissues. The cellular battery charge becomes weak. Cellular mitochondria, cytoplasm and cell membrane charges become weak. Cellular metabolism slows down. Sensitive biological processes get inhibited. Nutrition in and waste removal processes become sluggish. The action potentials, the signaling along the nerve cells get weak affecting tissue, muscle and organ and structure. These physiological cascades cause of a breakdown of systems leading to tissue stagnation, inflammation, pain and swelling.
Surgery to change one’s appearance or even sexual orientation seems as easy as changing one’s clothes. The miracle of modern medicine and the exaggerated promise of technology offer the allure to be someone else, look like someone else and feel like someone else. All you have to do is pay some money.
My goal is to inform people about the costs of surgery to the body mind. I am not here to shame people for having surgery. Surgery is a common outcome of our medical system. I hope to inspire the awareness and value of our body’s interconnected systems and the goal of keeping all of our organs if possible.
The latest civil rights forefront is to have protection and equal rights for sexual identity under the law. I would like to see the day when we can have sexual preferences and identities taken off of the political and cultural discussion table as long as it does not harm any child, man, woman, animal, person, place, thing or Mother Earth.
I do not favor surgery to change one’s gender for all of the reasons above. I believe we should keep our original parts as much as possible. I believe the dream of different identity is not worth the reality of the surgery. The promise of exchanged identity is a pipe dream of the current medical system and the false Gods of technology. In my opinion, the reality is far less glamorous and satisfying than advertised. I have had a few transgender clients come to me seeking advice on how best to manage their intended physical changes. Some have never had any surgery before. Many have never researched the side effects of surgeries or hormone therapy. Many people want to believe they can remove parts, swap parts and change parts like you change the parts in car. From my experience as a health care practitioner from 40 years I see challenges and damages with much surgery.
I believe humans should be encouraged from an early age to understand the major organ systems and functions of the body. We need to look under the hood to understand how our bodies thrive.
Every patient I have ever seen that has had surgery, of any kind has always had side effects. Pain, stagnation, loss of movement, decreased range of motion, depression, anxiety, loss of self, autoimmune diseases. All of these things are common side effects of having organs removed and to a lesser extent, minor surgeries like joint replacement.
The massive cultural concepts that “Progress comes with technology”, “Machines can save us from drudgery” and that “Medical technology is safe” needs to be scrutinized and challenged. We know technology does not always bring progress, good things or safe outcomes.
I am not anti surgery. It saves lives and helps people everyday. And I think we are getting better at it everyday. I am against un-necessary surgery for issues which can be prevented or treated with less invasive means. One should know the risks as well as the benefits of surgery and one should be made aware of alternatives and their cost and benefits. We need to upgrade our post surgical Physical Therapy treatments to address functional healing and structural balance.
As an acupuncturist I hope to see people before they have surgery to see if we can help their painful issues and stimulate recovery. It’s possible in many cases.
So what can be done if you’ve already had surgery? Treat your scars, trauma areas and implants with natural medicines. I have seen patients do better when following all of the typical health advice, eat well, exercise, tai chi, meditate, get sleep, do yoga or stretching and reduce stress.
Treatments for scars are available! Here is a good selection of treatments available for scar and surgery rehabilitation and pain treatment.
Acupuncture
Laser Therapy
Dolphin Neuro-stim Therapy
Neural Injection Therapy
Sun exposure
Massage
Gua Sha
Graston Technique
Feldencrais Movement
Essential oils
Stretching and Yoga
Chiropractic
Shiatsu
Herbal Medicine
Guna Scar Creme
Acupuncture, laser therapy, Neuro-stim and Neural injection therapies treat the scars directly have the most impact. All of the others are very good therapies. The thing to remember is that scars should be treated especially if there is pain, redness, numbness, swelling or any kind of discomfort.
In my practice I check scars to see if they need treatment. The, we use acupuncture, laser, neuro-stim to treat scars.
For the emotional aspect of organ loss, surgery, trauma and pain I do emotional balancing techniques to acknowledge and help the client to digest the emotional blockages that can linger in the body, mind and spirit.
I encourage any one with scars, implants and other surgeries to consider having them assessed and treated with any of the above therapies.
