Have you ever been told by your doctor that surgery is required - and opted out?

Nope never, I always went along the sugeries because I knew it would make me feel better than I was before. My galbladder was ready to burst when I had surgery but they didn’t know how bad it was until they took it out. If I decided to not do the surgery and my galbladder did burst I could have risked an early death.

Yes, I don’t like surgery I don’t like doctors and modern medicine. Ok that sounded a bit harsh. Let me rephrase it, I don’t always trust what they say. So I do a bit of homework first. I was due to have my coccyx removed, and decided not to.

I had fallen and cracked in on a stairway. Have I suffered? No now and then it gets a bit achy if I sit on a hard chair or fence! But other wise it’s all good.

@Shippy I broke my coccyx in a fall once but removal was never even suggested to me. I’m sure I would have turned it down too.
I’ve had surgery once and it was a life-threatening emergency. I was told afterwards that without it I’d have been dead within 48 hours..

Surgery is offered to me to make some scars less noticeable, but I don’t believe I will accept this offer. After eleven years, you get used to people staring, and I grew up with them, it’s really a part of my story. But if I was told that it is not just out of cosmetic reasons but there are valid health factors that speak for this operation, I would change my mind.

I haven’t, but I used to work at a physical therapy practice that touted itself as an alternative to orthopedic surgery in some cases. We had many patients who came in with the stated goal of avoiding recommended surgery, and we were able keep a good deal of them from going under the knife. Sometimes, though, it became apparent that the surgery was the best option – but I think our patients felt better knowing that they tried PT first.

Yes, I was once experiencing a tingling in my left hand and fingers which, while annoying, was not painful. I was advised that I had something like a pinched nerve in my left elbow which was then radiating down to my hand, and that it could be fixed by surgery. I figured, “Hey, it’s not life threatening”, and after all the surgeries I’ve had that were necessary, I turned it down. I guess it eventually worked itself out, because I don’t have it anymore.

My dad was told the only option was taking his gallbladder out, and he refused and treated it himself using nutrient supplements like magnesium citrate and some herbs. When I was young, I was becoming sick from an intestinal disorder, and it was basically the same. To this day, I haven’t had surgery to remove my colon, and I manage just fine by watching my diet. My sensitive colon does better with lots of animal and plant fat with a bit of soluble fiber, by the way, and not as well on insoluble fiber.

Yes, I put it off for a few years but in retrospect should have just done it right away in order to avoid a lot of hardship on the rest of me.

Not surgery but a procedure to radioactivly burn out my thyroid. I refused and I am so glad I did. I control my over active thyroid with pills that my system works really well with and I even go into remission for long periods of time. I could NOT have a life where I had no energy and grew several sizes larger.

I’ve been told I need knee replacement surgery. Since it’s not a life and death emergency, I’m choosing not to do it now for a variety of different reasons.

They weren’t telling me it was required, but they were definitely pushing me in that direction. I plugged my ears as hard as I could and tried all the less drastic options. In the end, though, surgery turned out to be what I needed and I wish I had gotten it sooner instead of fooling myself that I could get by without it.

@Mariah you sound like my grandfather when he waited until he couldn’t walk at all before giving in and getting a hip replacement. Once done he wished he didn’t wait since he was finally pain free after many years of pain

It’s just a scary step to take.