05-09-2021, 10:08 AM
(05-07-2021, 10:51 AM)OSUfan Wrote: Sorry to hear about your brother, yet you are assuming that a physician stated it was necessary or the only route to take for recovery. More times than you probably know the choice is decided by the player not by actual necessity. Players may very well opt for surgical repair in an effort to speed up the timeframe to be fully recovered. Tua at Alabama is a great example. It is medical knowledge that high ankle sprains heal with time. Tightrope surgery is not required to recover from a high ankle sprain. A high ankle sprain generally heals in the timeframe of 6 to 8 weeks give or take the severity of the original injury.
However, that would have put Tua out of playing in key games for Bama.
1) You don’t know what was or wasn’t discussed before the surgery.
2) You’re not a mind reader, therefore you don’t know what AtomicBlaze is or isn’t assuming. Your comment to someone who lost a family member is ignorant, disrespectful, and completely without class.
The rest of it is misinformation. Patients just don’t walk into a surgeon’s office and order the #2 like it’s a lunch special. And all patient’s consent to elective surgeries. The real question is whether the injury was severe enough for the surgeon to offer surgery as an option.
Let’s take your example of a tightrope surgery for a high ankle sprain. You’re assuming they are all created equal. They’re not. Just like the more traditional ankle sprain most will heal without surgery, but some will not. That doesn’t mean surgery for a grade III ankle sprain isn’t medically necessary because grade I ankle sprains heal without surgery.
https://www.resurgens.com/foot-ankle/procedures/tightrope-fixation-for-ankle-syndesmosis
Quote: The TightRope system anchors the ends of the tibia and fibula together with a braided polyethylene cord, rather than with a rigid surgical screw, to restore the original position of the bones and to allow for proper healing.
Like any other ORIF surgery to restore proper position of the bones and joints and promote proper healing, it 100% meets the definition of medically necessary.
When it comes to herniated discs, surgeons are pretty selective when offering surgery. If we grabbed 100 random people off the street, roughly 30-40 of them will have a lumbar HNP without any symptoms. A surgeon won’t offer them surgery. If a patient presents with a lumbar HNP and significant back pain without radicular symptoms, the surgeon won’t offer them surgery, either. And a “successful” discectomy can result in resolution of radicular symptoms, but still leaves the patient in so much pain it interferes with their activities of daily living.
