A surgeon reflects on how opioid overuse after surgery can lead to a 70% addiction rate within a year. He contrasts his 2015 labral tear repair, which required Percocet every four hours, with his 2017 hip replacement, where the surgeon limited doses and added yoga, meditation, and stem-cell PRP injections instead.
What about a 70-year-old, a 75-year-old that goes home and now they have to urinate by themselves and feel the— and not only that, our pain management, because of all of the opioid stuff around the 2010 timeframe, we don't even medicate pain as well as we should. I got— It's tough. In 2015, my labral tear repair, I was getting 2 Percocet every 4 hours. And then he even gave me a new prescription. When my hip replacement guy in 2017 said, studies show That if you're on it more than 4 days, like I think a huge number, 70% are addicted a year later. Or I mean, it's a huge number. And he only gave me one every 4 hours. So I think the way we manage pain, the joint replacement itself. So there's multiple facets to not only longevity you're giving people, Josh, but the lack— you're cutting down pain and suffering. You're improving people's quality of life. And then I love where you're going with this mental, emotional. We do not think about that in the West. But we are energetic beings and you see it in the stem cells that you're taking out to make that PRP for your injections. Mind, you know, yoga is for the mind, meditation, pranayama, that is yoga. And the mind is really a big part of what we need to work on in health. And for an orthopedic surgeon to be at this point in his career where you are looking at the whole human. Doing the approach that you're doing. Like, I just, I love you. I'm so grateful. And I, there's more and more physicians like you because yeah, it's amazing. So thank you for what you're doing.
She Traveled from Colorado for a Different Approach to Knee Pain | Lois’ Story
