Well, as might be expected, the article in last week’s New England Journal of Medicine has spawned dozens of additional articles and blog posts across the infosphere. This, of course, was the article by Canadian researchers that found that arthroscopic surgery offered no real  benefits, when used to treat arthritis. And, as I pointed out a couple of days ago, this study reiterated the findings of earlier studies which found pretty much the same thing.
 
Dr. Robert Litchfield, the head of the Kennedy Fowler Sport Medicine Clinic and the one of the study’s co-investigators, suggested that in view of their findings, “surgeons need to think about other ways of treating patients, rather than jumping immediately to surgery.”
 
Well, DUH! I was always under the impression that that was what we were supposed to so ALL the time. Ah well, the fat’s in the fire, now. Every purveyor of alternative measures is out there, beating the drum for their own special brand of remedy. Physical therapists, in particular, are in high cotton over this report, since exercise is one of the alternatives that the study found to be just as effective as surgery in improving arthritis symptoms. And it is. And so is exercise without the benefit of a therapist, like the exercise I teach in my PAIN-FREE PROGRAM at http://drbillsclinic.com/exercise_eliminate.html
 
Now the NEJM article has led to a derivitive article in U.S. News & World Report, that promotes “six alternatives to surgery for treating arthritis.”  These not-so-secret six are well known to everyone, and in fact are included in my newest healing program,
 HOW TO AVOID KNEE SURGERY, as you can see at   http://drbillsclinic.com/avoid_knee_surgery.html
But the trick is knowing HOW and WHEN to use them, and in WHAT MANNER.
 
The six alternatives treatments that are known to be effective include 1. weight loss & exercise,  2. physical therapy (read, supervised EXERCISE),  3. medications, 4. glucosamine & chondroitin (read, NUTRICEUTICALS), 5. Viscosupplementation and 6. total knee replacement.
 
Given the message that arthroscopic surgery for arthritis was to be avoided, I was kind of amused that the sixth “alternative” to arthroscopic surgery was total knee replacement. I mean, that’s the definitive treatment for end stage arthritis, from virtually any source. But that’s pretty major–it’s as big a surgical intervention as there is, with regard to arthritis. So their recommendations range from exercises and naturopathic measures to complete joint replacement. That’s quite a jump!
 
The fact is, no one in their right mind would suggest a total knee, unless ALL other measures had been exhausted, first. It’s kind of axiomatic. It’s what I refer to as my “Ladder Principle:” you start at the bottom rung, with the least invasive, least aggressive therapy you can find. Then, you “climb the ladder” until you find that treatment that works for you.
 
The problem is that you don’t need information–there’s a world of information out there. But without a filter, without a guide to teach you what’s effective and what’s not, you’ll be spinning your wheels a long time and wasting a lot of money in the process. That’s why I wrote my healing program, HOW TO AVOID KNEE SURGERY   http://drbillsclinic.com/avoid_knee_surgery.html
 
It’s a guide to all those treatments that are out there, conventional, alternative, and complementary, that shows you, step by step, what to do, how to do it, how much of any medication or nutriceutical to take, and most important, what to AVOID. You see, you don’t need more information. You need ADVICE. And that’s what I provide. That’s what I do.
 
So, if you or someone you care about has arthritis, or some other type of joint pain, and you want to know what to do to get FAST relief of knee pain and do it WITHOUT SURGERY, click on this link for my latest and best program http://drbillsclinic.com/avoid_knee_surgery.html
 
That’s it for today. Til next time, my friend, be well.
 
Yours for a pain-free tomorrow,
 
Dr. Bill
 
P.S. For DR. BILL’S LITTLE GREEN BOOK ON ELIMINATING KNEE PAIN, a concise, but complete handbook on the root causes and the various options for treating knee pain, go to http://drbillsclinic.com/eliminate_knee_pain.html
 
P.P.S. For DR. BILL’S PAIN-FREE PROGRAM: EXERCISES TO PREVENT OR ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN, please go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/exercise_eliminate.html
 
P.P.P.S. For the giant, comprehensive ADVANCED MASTERS’ COURSE: HOW TO ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN–ONCE & FOR ALL!, everything you need to know on causes and solutions for knee pain and the complete exercise program, too, go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/advanced_masters.html
 
FREE BONUS CD with any order: THE HEALING POWER OF POSITIVE PAIN PERCEPTION
 
Copyright, 2008 by William Thomas Stillwell, MD
All rights reserved

I think it was 1973 when I read about Durk Pearson for the first time. His book LIFE EXTENSION was a mega best seller, back then. He and his girlfriend, and co-author, Sandy Shaw were scientists, who had made a study of various supplements, vitamins, minerals and
the like that they believed, based on available resaerch, would extend the life span of the average person and enhance the quality of that life, as well. Now, bodybuilders and other athletes had been taking supplements for years, but this was something new. This was real science backing up their recommendations.
 
Durk Pearson himself was quite an enigmatic guy. He was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. He was a strange looking, tall, gangly man in black leather pants, hideous silver and tourquoise Native American Jewelry (though they were still “Indians” in those days), straggly, shoulder length brown hair. He also reportedly had the highest IQ of anyone they’d ever had at MIT in Boston, where they were quite impressed with him. Sandy was no slouch either. They lived and worked together and apparently were an item. The two of them together were as odd and Bohemian a pair as you’d ever see and you’d never suspect the depth of intelligence they possessed from their appearance. Hey, you never know….
 
Anyway, I was one of very few people who actually read the entire tome, cover to cover. I know I was pretty impressed with their research. Starting then, I began taking megadose Vitamin C, Vitamin E, selenium, niacin and a host of other supplements. Although much of their data was based on animal studies, extrapolated onto human beings, I was impressed with their reasoning and I always felt that it was a gamble worth taking. After all, if you wait 20 or 30 years to find out if it works, and then discover it does, it’s too late to do you any good. 

A number of my more conservative colleagues have always thought I was crazy, in this regard. They’d never take anything without a number of double blind, controlled studies, which on its surface, seems to make sense. Only problem was and still is that no one is making a buck on these things, in comparison to prescription drugs; therefore, no funds or incentives to conduct such studies. Still, I looked in the
literature for myself and found support here and there in various journals.
 
For example, I found buried in the Plastic Surgery journals evidence of the efficacy of Vitamin C in wound healing. They did a study of the tensile strength of scars in rabbits, and compared those given the human equivalent of 2 grams of Vitamin C a day with another group that had none. They made incisions in each rabbit and allowed them to heal. Then, they cut the scars out of them and hung weights on the scars, held on a hook, length-wise. They added weights until the scars tore apart. Guess what? The scars from the Vitamin C rabbits had three times the tensile strength of the other group. That’s a 300% increase in strength.
 
So, years later, when I began doing my own surgery, I ordered oral and intravenous Vitamin C (as well as my own concoction of liquid vitamin B complex) on all my postop patients. And I was able to get the staples out of their incisions in three days, instead of the 10-14
days that everyone else needed. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
 
So I’ve been taking supplements since that time. Over the years, I’ve added to my own personal regimen, although I was always much more conservative with my patients. After all, a lot of this is a speculative gamble, and I didn’t want to gamble with my patients, without more solid proof. Over the last decade or so,  I’ve learned about and added other nutrients, including the protective compounds in many foods and the pain relieving effects of certain spices, which have additional health benefits, to enhance your life, as well. Some spices are so effective that they can be taken orally; others can be applied to the skin and relieve the pain in the joint beneath. 

I describe these spices, as well as a number of other dietary measures and helpful supplements, that can help to relieve joint pain, in my ADVANCED MASTERS COURSE   http://drbillsclinic.com/advanced_masters.html
The great thing about these naturopathic measures is that they work with conventional treatments and medications, often by different pathways, to bring long term relief and, in many cases, can help you to avoid surgery.
 
This course is the real deal–everything I know about eliminating knee pain, but in layman’s English. If you’re a therapist, trainer, nurse, chiropractor,  or a non-orthopaedic physician, or just someone who wants to know it all, this has all the information you’ll ever need, from across the entire treatment spectrum. And it’s available in a convenient, affordable monthly lesson format, to make it easy to learn and easy to own. So click on the link and sign up for yours today    http://drbillsclinic.com/advanced_masters.html
 
Til next time, my friend, be well.

Yours for a pain-free tomorrow,
 
Dr. Bill
 
P.S. For DR. BILL’S LITTLE GREEN BOOK ON ELIMINATING KNEE PAIN, a concise, but complete handbook on the root causes and the various options for treating knee pain, go to   http://drbillsclinic.com/eliminate_knee_pain.html
 
P.P.S. For DR. BILL’S PAIN-FREE PROGRAM: EXERCISES TO PREVENT OR ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN, please go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/exercise_eliminate.html
 
P.P.P.S. For the giant, comprehensive ADVANCED MASTERS’ COURSE: HOW TO ELIMINATE KNEE PAIN–ONCE & FOR ALL!, everything you need to know on causes and solutions for knee pain and the complete exercise program, too, go to
 http://drbillsclinic.com/advanced_masters.html
 
FREE BONUS CD with any order: THE HEALING POWER OF POSITIVE PAIN PERCEPTION
 
Copyright, 2008 by William Thomas Stillwell, MD
All rights reserved