Surgery and how to Prepare for it on a Nutritional Balancing Program
Surgery is one of the most advanced and amazing accomplishments of modern allopathic medicine. Even so, there are always risks with any surgery.
I receive many requests for information about surgery, such as how to prepare for it using nutritional balancing principles, whether it is needed, and other questions. This article answers many of these questions.
Support with a nutritional balancing program, but not most other nutritional regimens, can avoid most surgery. If it is needed, NB can help greatly to reduce the risk of any surgery. It helps relax the patient, gets rid of most serious nutritional imbalances, prevents some problems of improper blood clotting, and enhances circulation.
It can also enhance the ability to form collateral circulation with substances such as vitamin E, helps the body resist infection, and reduces the tendency for adhesions and scarring. In addition, it helps balance the autonomic nervous system so that if a cardiovascular accident or stroke occurs, the body is less liable to go into a fight-flight or shock reaction that often kills the patient.
Planning can also make an enormous difference in surgical outcome. This is known in a few hospitals that insist that all patients prepare for surgery by taking certain vitamins and minerals, or by eating certain foods. Some hospitals are also much more careful to avoid surgical errors that can cause disability, or even cost you your life.
NUTRITIONAL BALANCING MAY ALTER DRUG NEEDS
Doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel are accustomed to handling patients whose level of overall health is very low. Specific drug protocols are used with these people for safety and effectiveness. Also, hospital personnel take certain precautions that are needed with these people to prevent infections and other complications of surgery.
If you have carefully followed a nutritional balancing program for at least a year, especially the diet, your body should be in much better condition than average. As a result:
I suggest discussing these possibilities with your doctor if you follow a complete nutritional balancing program so that lower doses of drugs are tried first. This may prevent significant discomfort and perhaps avoid disability or other bad outcomes.
DANGERS OF SURGERY AND WHY THE PROPER NUTRITIONAL SUPPORT IS EXTREMELY HELPFUL
Proper nutritional and other support is very important before and after surgery for at least four reasons:
1. All surgery is an attack or wound on the body, even if it saves your life. As a result, the following always occurs:
a.) Nutritional depletion. This is discussed in more detail below. However, to summarize, it means that recovering from surgical wounds always requires extra nutrients.
This is known, but for the most part, the surgical community ignores this research. This is most unfortunate. In my experience with surgical cases, those who are well-nourished heal far more rapidly and thoroughly than average, often in half the time.
b) Shock reactions are possible. Shock actually kills a lot of surgical patients. Shock reactions are impossible to avoid altogether, and one never knows if shock will occur. It can be triggered by cutting a nerve or major artery, or even just manipulating certain tissues and organs. Major blood loss, trauma to a part of the body, infection or other complications during and after surgery can all contribute.
In older patients, just the psychological stress and fear of surgery can be a factor causing a shock reaction. Some people are terrified of anesthesia. At times, the operating room is too cold or stuffy. Careful attention to warmth, fresh air, a caring manner on the part of the surgeon and assistants, not speaking negatively during surgery, and relaxing the patient before surgery can help avoid some of these shock factors, but not all of them.
c) Other types of post-surgery trauma are possible. Some people even have PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder due to a surgery, especially if it went badly. Surgery always leaves memories that are unpleasant for most people. This is just one reason not to have surgery unless it is definitely needed.
2. All surgery exposes a person to many infections. This is a major problem with all surgery, especially major surgery with the body cavity wide open to the air for hours. Infection from surgery is a common occurrence that can easily take your life.
Infections can come from the air in the operating room, unclean operating instruments, or the surgeon’s hands if a glove breaks, which they occasionally do. They can also come from a sneeze or cough by the surgeons or nurses, or even a flake of skin from the surgeon’s face or hair area that is not protected. Other sources are dust or dirt on a machine the surgeon or anesthetist is using, since machines are used more and more. These include x-ray machines, other scanners, robotic arms, life support equipment and much more. Even the water used to wash out wounds, the gauze used to wipe the wound, bandages, and other items can carry germs, even when they are supposedly sterilized.
Infection also often arises after surgery from bed sheets, the air in the recovery room, other people walking near your bed, and equipment used in recovery rooms.
Proper support can help greatly to strengthen the body, heal wounds faster, and thus reduce the risk of infection.
3. Surgery exposes the body to numerous drugs, in most cases. If possible, ask for local anesthetics for this reason. Anesthesia drugs are often the worst because they can affect the brain and nervous system, reducing a person’s quality of life often for the duration of one’s life. Some day, acupuncture anesthesia will be employed, and is much less harmful to the body.
Anesthesia problems are at least of two general types. One is acute effects on the brain, in particular, that occur during the operation when the amount of drugs in the body is high. The other is chronic effects from drug residues that remain in the body for years.
Antibiotics are another very toxic class of drugs that are used liberally after many types of surgery. Ask for as few antibiotics as possible, after surgery. Surgeons may be loathe to “wait and see” if antibiotics are needed, but this is best if you are following a nutritional balancing program, since you will be much less prone to infection after surgery.
Other toxic products used during and after surgery may include toxic soaps and cleaning solutions, muscle and nerve relaxants, tranquilizers, IV solutions, and perhaps many others. Proper nutritional balancing support can significantly help the liver and kidneys remove these drugs faster and more effectively. Otherwise, some drugs persist in the body for years, weakening the body often spoiling your quality of life, even if the surgery is successful.
4. Another risk of all surgery is venous stasis during long operations due to a lack of movement by the patient. This is sometimes a problem because the patient is unconscious, hard to move, and usually has no place to be moved or turned over. As a result, blood can pool in the legs or other places. This impairs circulation and can increase the risk of shock, blood clots and emboli that can cause death very quickly.
5. Blood clots, thromboses and/or embolisms. This occurs for at least four reasons:
a) Surgeons must often tie off arteries and veins that must be cut in order to reach deeper body structures or to remove diseased organs. This disturbs the artery or vein and can cause a small piece of plaque or cholesterol to break off and enter the general circulation.
b) Surgeons must often manipulate and handle delicate organs and other structures inside the body.
c) As mentioned above, surgical patients must lie down motionless, often for hours during surgery. They often must also lay in bed for hours or days afterwards. This impairs circulation and is known to increase the risk of venous stasis and blood clots.
d) The use of certain drugs during, and perhaps before and after surgery, may also increase the risk of blood clots.
For all these reasons, a tiny piece of plaque in an artery or vein can break loose and float through the blood and lodge in the heart, lungs or brain. This causes a heart attack, a pulmonary embolism or a stroke, respectively. All of these events can be lethal, and often are.
6. The risk of uncontrolled bleeding or hemorrhaging. This is an important risk of some types of surgery involving organs or areas of the body that have a good blood supply. It is also easy for a surgeon to nick an artery or vein without even realizing it, since some surgery is quite delicate. Also, bleeding can occur simply due to manipulating and moving around the tissues, especially in an older, unhealthy person. Such bleeding may stop by itself, but often it does not, and it can lead to death quite easily and quickly.
7. Scarring or adhesions after surgery is another important risk factor. This happens very often, especially with surgery to the intestinal tract, nervous system, and kidneys. Scarring and adhesions after surgery, even the best surgery, can be devastating and can cause stenosis of the spinal canal leading to chronic pain, stenosis of the ureters leading to kidney failure if not noticed quickly, intestinal blockage, pain syndromes, and many other problems.
Scarring is common and perhaps inevitable to a degree. However, if the body is healthy and balanced, particularly the metabolism of zinc and copper, it happens less. I know this because clients report that their skin scars fade away when they follow a nutritional balancing program.
8. Inadequate healing or recovery after surgery. Surgery may go well, but the patient’s wound site may not close and heal well. This is also common. This can leave open sores, improperly fused bones, layers of tissues that do not bond correctly or adhere, scars, sclerosis and fibrosis. All of these can leave the patient disabled to some degree.
In this arena, nutritional balancing is quite amazing, in my experience. Even just a significant improvement in the diet, drinking water and lifestyle can have a significant impact on the rate and quality of tissue healing and regeneration after surgery.
9. Avoiding nutrient depletion due to surgery and post-operatively. Surgery almost always results in nutrient depletion. Reasons for this are:
a) The stress and trauma of surgery forces the body to use up more nutrients.
b) Many people are asked to fast for 12 to 24 hours before surgery to reduce the risk of some complications.
c) Most hospital food and water is not that good, so if one is in the hospital preparing for surgery, nutrition may suffer.
d) After surgery, one may not want to eat much, may not be able to eat due to nausea or other symptoms, or eating may be restricted for a few days or more.
e) The use of anesthetic drugs, antibiotics, or other medications further deplete nutrients. In addition, they can interfere with proper digestion and absorption of nutrients for weeks or longer after surgery.
Improving the diet and taking extra nutrients before and after surgery is therefore ALWAYS helpful and probably should be mandated by the government!
10. Surgery always cuts through some acupuncture meridians, and other subtle anatomical structures. This may or may not be a problem, but it does occur.
11. Surgical errors and other mistakes before, during and after surgery. These are very common and numerous. Surgery is a complex process requiring preparation, administration of numerous drugs, at times, lengthy recoveries, at times, rehabilitation, and more. All of these processes can go wrong, and often do.
SURGICAL ERRORS, AND HOW TO HELP PREVENT THEM
About 20 people a week get surgery on the wrong arm, the wrong leg or the wrong lung. About another 20 per week have surgery on the right spot, but they get the wrong operation. About 39 times per week, a surgeon accidentally leaves something inside a patient, such as a piece of surgical equipment. This all adds up to about 4000 surgical mistakes every year!
One cannot totally prevent these mistakes. However, here are several steps you can take to minimize them:
1. When discussing surgery with a doctor, bring an “advocate” or “historian” with you, especially if the person is elderly or ill. Someone should write down everything the doctor tells the patient such as the name of the operation, where it is, how it will be done, and so forth. This person should then accompany the patient in the hospital as much as possible, keeping an eye on things, checking drugs and checking the chart to make sure everything is done right.
2. Invest in a magic marker. While it may seem unusual, it is fine to mark on your body with a circle where the operation is to be, and tell the doctor to look for it.
3. Meet your doctor. Ask to speak with the surgeon just before surgery begins, and don’t let them start the anesthesia until you do this. Tell him you have a last minute question. The question is not so important. What is important is that he knows who you are, and what procedure will be done. If the doctor looks puzzled or surprised, get out fast.
4. Hold a family meeting about this now. Be prepared if someone needs emergency surgery to follow the steps above. Tell everyone in the family to watch everything the doctors do, since the family member undergoing surgery may not be able to do so.
AVOIDING SURGERY
By following a complete nutritional balancing program, many surgeries can be totally avoided. These may include joint replacement or other joint surgery, some hysterectomies, prostate surgery, tonsillectomies, most cancer surgery including skin cancers, bypass operations, eye surgery, and many others. Please keep this in mind if surgery has been recommended to you.
Surgeries that are necessary include emergencies such as broken bones and other results of accidents, and hemorrhoid surgery if the problem is severe and not responding to a nutritional balancing program. Clearing out hemorrhoids will allow one to do coffee enemas, and this is a great benefit of this surgery, at times.
Other necessary or helpful common surgeries may include the removal of ovarian cysts, uterine fibroid tumors, and other benign tumors. These are difficult to eliminate, many times, and removal may be best if they are interfering with one’s life. For example, in order to become pregnant, some women need to have their uterine fibroid tumors removed. Nutritional balancing may not eliminate them.
SUMMARY OF THE BENEFITS OF NUTRITIONAL BALANCING PROGRAMS
a) As stated above, nutritional balancing will help anyone to completely avoid many types of surgery. This, of course, is the best way to reduce surgical risks.
b) If surgery is needed, fewer complications will occur. Complications of surgery are usually the cause of severe disability and death from surgery. Statistically, healthy individuals have fewer complications, as might be imagined. Those who take vitamins generally do better, even if the supplements are quite random.
c) If a complication occurs, such as bleeding or infection, it will be less severe and handled more easily.
d) Surgical recovery will be faster and less eventful.
e) If one should need emergency surgery, a well-nourished and well-balanced body chemistry will survive all types of accidents, injuries and surgeries much better, in my experience.
IF TIME PERMITS, A NUTRITIONAL BALANCING PROGRAM BEFORE SURGERY IS BEST
If you have at least one or more months before you will have surgery, by far the best approach to prepare for surgery is to follow a complete nutritional balancing program. This will enhance your overall health much better than any other method that I am aware of. It may also reduce the chances of complications of surgery. If you are fortunate, it might even reduce or eliminate the need for the surgery, depending on what the operation will be.
If, however, your surgery is coming up in a week or two, then there will not be time to embark on a full nutritional balancing program. In this case, the section below discusses simple ways to prepare quickly for an operation.
BASIC PRE-OPERATIVE SURGICAL PREPARATION
1. If you are already following a nutritional balancing program, stay on the entire program. Do not stop it before surgery, and continue it as soon as possible after surgery.
2. If you are not on a nutritional balancing program, begin immediately to follow the Slow Oxidizer Diet. Most people are slow oxidizers. A few are fast oxidizers and need much more fat and oils in their diet.
3. Do foot reflexology sessions, at least two daily, for a few days before surgery and at least a few days afterwards. Ideally, have a friend or family member assist you after surgery because you will usually be somewhat weak and tired.
4. Be sure you are well-hydrated before and after surgery. Drink spring water, ideally. Water in plastic bottles are fine. Adults need about 3 quarts or 3 liters of water daily, and children need less.
Do not drink reverse osmosis water, distilled water, alkaline water or other designer waters. In most cases, they are not as good.
5. Use a red heat lamp preferably before surgery, and on the wound site after surgery. This can speed the healing of wounds and may reduce a tendency for infection. The energy of a standard 250-watt red incandescent ‘heat lamp’ is very compatible with human physiology and acts as a type of nutrient. Do not use other types of lamps such as halogen bulbs or red LEDs.
6. Right before surgery, a nurse or other person should perform a colonic irrigation on the patient. An enema before surgery was formerly standard practice. Now it is ignored, or perhaps a laxative is given. However, operating when the colon is empty and clean is significantly safer because fewer poisons are generated there, and this reduces the toxicity of the surgery for the patient. I hope some day this practice will be revived for surgical patients.
7. Before surgery, make sure the patient is well-hydrated. This will make surgery safer. It is not always easy to assess. However, drinking a good spring water such as Evian water will help assure the patient is well-hydrated.
8. If surgery is elective, do not do surgery under certain conditions. Be extra careful or wait if the hair mineral analysis indicates a four lows pattern. It is simply not as safe. Also, wait if a person’s oxidation rate is extremely fast or extremely slow, or when the person’s sodium/potassium ratio is less than about 2.
If you must do surgery when the above conditions are present, use extra caution to avoid problems.
9. Take a few basic nutritional supplements. I will emphasize the most critical ones needed by most people:
Kelp. Kelp supplies many vital nutrients in a convenient capsule form. Taking three to six 600 mg capsules per day for a week before surgery, at the very least, can alleviate the worst mineral deficiencies in most people. Taking it for much longer before surgery would be better, at least for a month or two.
Zinc & Copper. These are needed to heal wounds of all kinds. Zinc and copper are needed for the formation of connective tissue, the main tissue used to heal all wounds in the body.
Zinc, in particular, also helps prevent and treat all infections, as does copper, to a lesser degree. A good zinc dosage for an adult would be 20 to 30 mg per day for at least two weeks prior to surgery.
A good dosage of copper is 1-2 mg daily before, during and after surgery. I would take these in isolated form, rather than in a multivitamin. In a multivitamin, the problem is that other nutrients may compete with zinc and copper, especially iron.
Vitamins A and D. Other nutrients that could be added to a pre-surgical workup are vitamin A and D. These, also, help the body fight infection, help maintain calcium, a very important mineral needed for wound healing and blood clotting, and these also help the body in general fight stress and maintain balance in the wake of stressful events.
The recommended dosage of A is about 20,000 iu or more daily. Start with at least this amount and ideally a week, at least, before your surgery and continue all nutrients for at least three weeks after surgery.
Vitamin D can also be taken in large doses safely. Take about 5,000 iu daily for at least a week before and for several weeks after surgery.
Bioflavinoids. Another set of nutrients that may be helpful are called vitamin P or bioflavinoids. These are needed, along with vitamin C, to strengthen cell membranes, especially those of capillaries that are often cut during surgery.
While other nutrients would also be superb, especially all the trace minerals and a few more vitamins, these are the most critical ones.
Bioflavinoids are a group of nutrients with names such as quercitin, rutin, hesperidan and others. They can help prevent excessive bleeding and hemorrhaging. They are usually sold together and one can take at least 1000 mg daily for a week before and two weeks after surgery.
Cooked vegetables and some of the whole grains also contain many bioflavinoids. Such foods are blue corn chips, carrots and other orange vegetables, yellow and green cooked vegetables, not raw ones.
Vitamin C. Some people need more vitamin C, though do not overdo on it. A good dosage for most people is up to 2,000 mg daily. This will not cause diarrhea in most people.
Vitamin C can help reduce bleeding, can control some infections, and can assist wound healing.
Omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients. Many other nutrients are deficient in many people today. Among the most important are the omega-3 fatty acids. Eat a few cans of sardines before surgery or take a supplement of these, about 1000 mg daily.
NUTRIENTS TO AVOID BEFORE SURGERY
Certain nutrients, if given in excessive amounts, are not helpful for surgery. The most important are those that tend to cause increased blood clotting time, or less tendency for blood to clot. While these help some people, in others they may make surgery more hazardous.
This may be one reason surgeons stay away from all nutrients, though it is a silly reason. Let us examine these.
Vitamin E. Too much vitamin E can cause more bleeding in some people. It does this by acting as a powerful anti-oxidant, which is normally a good idea. During surgery, however, the reaction of the tissues to the knife is such that oxygen is present and this enables the blood vessels to clot.
Therefore, anything that interferes with this could, theoretically, assist the body as an anti-oxidant and therefore slow the clotting of the wound. Having said this, a little vitamin E, up to 400 iu/day, is fine and, in fact, recommended. Higher doses are not recommended.
Nattokinase. This is an enzyme that thins the blood, to some degree. It is helpful to prevent or reduce blood clots. However, too much would not be helpful before or right after most surgery unless one needs it to normalize blood clotting.
If you take this nutrient all the time, I suggest stopping it a few days before surgery. If you are not taking it, do not start just before a surgical procedure of any kind, even the removal of a tooth, for example.
PREVENTIVE COLLOIDAL SILVER TO REDUCE SURGICAL INFECTIONS
Before any operation, I suggest taking colloidal silver as a way to prevent or mitigate infection. One should not need preventive antibiotics, in this case, although a doctor might still want a patient to take antibiotics.
The dosage of a low-potency colloidal silver (up to 100 parts per million silver) is 2 to 3 tablespoons daily for a few days before surgery, and for a week or two afterwards. I prefer Arabesque brand or Sovereign Silver brand of colloidal silver. Homemade silver is not reliable enough.
WARNING: IF POSSIBLE, GIVE YOUR OWN BLOOD BEFORE SURGERY IF THERE IS ANY CHANCE YOU WILL NEED BLOOD
If you may need blood, always give your own blood preferably, before surgery rather than using just anyone’s blood. Blood transfusions always carry some risk, especially today when there are many infections in the people. Blood also carries toxic metals, parasites and other problems at times. These cannot be filtered out.
Another alternative if blood is needed are some of the other types of blood products, instead of whole blood, when it is possible to use it.
If you may need a lot of blood, try to find a friend or relative with your blood type whom you know if fairly healthy, and ask that person to donate blood before surgery so it is there if you need it. Donating blood is a wonderful gesture of friendship. Although it depletes the body a little, it is far better than accepting just any blood from a blood bank today.
DURING SURGERY
1. Rub the patient’s feet. Ideally, assign a nurse to this duty, although one of the surgical nurses could do it, as well. It relaxes the nervous system, and has many other benefits. For more, read Reflexology on this website.
2. Have an ozone air purifier in the surgical operating theatre. This will increase the oxygen content of the air to a small degree, which also increases the safety of surgery.
AFTER SURGERY
DIET
Post surgery recovery should also be uneventful if one eats lightly, but very healthfully. Carrot juice, wheat grass juice and plenty of chicken soup and vegetables should be the main part of your diet. Do not eat heavily after any surgery. Also, avoid all junk food, sugar, ice cream, and the like.
Other important things are rest as much as possible, get out in the sun and get as much fresh air as possible without becoming chilled. Try to sleep with a window open at least a crack, for example, and try to be outside in the sun each day, even if it is only for a few minutes.
DRINKING WATER
Try to have a friend bring in your drinking water, preferably spring water only. Hospitals use tap water, which contains fluoride, chlorine and many other toxins. Be sure to drink plenty of water, rather than eat a lot of food for a few days. A fast of a day or two is not a bad idea after a major surgery.
QUIET PEACE AND REST
Try to get as much rest after surgery as possible. Do not allow a lot of visitors for a day or two, and preferably do not allow nurses to wake you up at all hours of the night. Try to be in a quiet room, preferably with some sunshine.
AN ADVOCATE OR HELPER
Any time one is in the hospital, if possible have a friend or partner read your chart, talk with the nurses and oversee everything that goes on related to your case. This is vital, at times. Hospitals make many mistakes, unfortunately. This can be giving incorrect medication, or worse. The causes are overwork, fatigued personnel and general ill health of doctors, nurses and others. For these reasons, it is very wise to have a friend and advocate hover over the doctors and nurses whenever one must be in the hospital.
REMOVING ANESTHESIA DRUGS AND OTHER TOXINS FROM THE BODY
A very important step after a long operation, or any operation in many cases, is to remove the anesthesia and other drug residues as fast as possible. The safest, fastest and most reliable way to do this, in my experience, is to follow a complete nutritional balancing program administered only by one of the Approved Practitioners listed on this website. A year or more on a complete nutritional balancing program is needed to remove the bulk of the anesthesia and other drugs.
If going on a complete program is not possible, I would at least follow the Free Program listed on this website.
COFFEE ENEMAS, NOT PAINKILLING DRUGS
Instead of taking pain-killing drugs after surgery, if possible use coffee enemas daily to relieve pain. Coffee enemas began as a method of reliveing pain in wounded soldiers during World War I. For more on this excellent method of pain control, read Coffee Enemas on this website.
Sources: Lawrence Wilson, MD
I receive many requests for information about surgery, such as how to prepare for it using nutritional balancing principles, whether it is needed, and other questions. This article answers many of these questions.
Support with a nutritional balancing program, but not most other nutritional regimens, can avoid most surgery. If it is needed, NB can help greatly to reduce the risk of any surgery. It helps relax the patient, gets rid of most serious nutritional imbalances, prevents some problems of improper blood clotting, and enhances circulation.
It can also enhance the ability to form collateral circulation with substances such as vitamin E, helps the body resist infection, and reduces the tendency for adhesions and scarring. In addition, it helps balance the autonomic nervous system so that if a cardiovascular accident or stroke occurs, the body is less liable to go into a fight-flight or shock reaction that often kills the patient.
Planning can also make an enormous difference in surgical outcome. This is known in a few hospitals that insist that all patients prepare for surgery by taking certain vitamins and minerals, or by eating certain foods. Some hospitals are also much more careful to avoid surgical errors that can cause disability, or even cost you your life.
NUTRITIONAL BALANCING MAY ALTER DRUG NEEDS
Doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel are accustomed to handling patients whose level of overall health is very low. Specific drug protocols are used with these people for safety and effectiveness. Also, hospital personnel take certain precautions that are needed with these people to prevent infections and other complications of surgery.
If you have carefully followed a nutritional balancing program for at least a year, especially the diet, your body should be in much better condition than average. As a result:
- You may react differently than others to standard drug protocols. For example, you may need less drugs to achieve a drug effect. This is common. A standard dose is too much for a very healthy person, and can cause complications.
- Your body might remove a particular drug faster than occurs in others. This can cause serious problems, as well, such as with certain types of anesthesia.
- You may not need some surgical precautions such as the heavy use of antibiotics, which add more toxicity to the procedure and slow down healing.
I suggest discussing these possibilities with your doctor if you follow a complete nutritional balancing program so that lower doses of drugs are tried first. This may prevent significant discomfort and perhaps avoid disability or other bad outcomes.
DANGERS OF SURGERY AND WHY THE PROPER NUTRITIONAL SUPPORT IS EXTREMELY HELPFUL
Proper nutritional and other support is very important before and after surgery for at least four reasons:
1. All surgery is an attack or wound on the body, even if it saves your life. As a result, the following always occurs:
a.) Nutritional depletion. This is discussed in more detail below. However, to summarize, it means that recovering from surgical wounds always requires extra nutrients.
This is known, but for the most part, the surgical community ignores this research. This is most unfortunate. In my experience with surgical cases, those who are well-nourished heal far more rapidly and thoroughly than average, often in half the time.
b) Shock reactions are possible. Shock actually kills a lot of surgical patients. Shock reactions are impossible to avoid altogether, and one never knows if shock will occur. It can be triggered by cutting a nerve or major artery, or even just manipulating certain tissues and organs. Major blood loss, trauma to a part of the body, infection or other complications during and after surgery can all contribute.
In older patients, just the psychological stress and fear of surgery can be a factor causing a shock reaction. Some people are terrified of anesthesia. At times, the operating room is too cold or stuffy. Careful attention to warmth, fresh air, a caring manner on the part of the surgeon and assistants, not speaking negatively during surgery, and relaxing the patient before surgery can help avoid some of these shock factors, but not all of them.
c) Other types of post-surgery trauma are possible. Some people even have PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder due to a surgery, especially if it went badly. Surgery always leaves memories that are unpleasant for most people. This is just one reason not to have surgery unless it is definitely needed.
2. All surgery exposes a person to many infections. This is a major problem with all surgery, especially major surgery with the body cavity wide open to the air for hours. Infection from surgery is a common occurrence that can easily take your life.
Infections can come from the air in the operating room, unclean operating instruments, or the surgeon’s hands if a glove breaks, which they occasionally do. They can also come from a sneeze or cough by the surgeons or nurses, or even a flake of skin from the surgeon’s face or hair area that is not protected. Other sources are dust or dirt on a machine the surgeon or anesthetist is using, since machines are used more and more. These include x-ray machines, other scanners, robotic arms, life support equipment and much more. Even the water used to wash out wounds, the gauze used to wipe the wound, bandages, and other items can carry germs, even when they are supposedly sterilized.
Infection also often arises after surgery from bed sheets, the air in the recovery room, other people walking near your bed, and equipment used in recovery rooms.
Proper support can help greatly to strengthen the body, heal wounds faster, and thus reduce the risk of infection.
3. Surgery exposes the body to numerous drugs, in most cases. If possible, ask for local anesthetics for this reason. Anesthesia drugs are often the worst because they can affect the brain and nervous system, reducing a person’s quality of life often for the duration of one’s life. Some day, acupuncture anesthesia will be employed, and is much less harmful to the body.
Anesthesia problems are at least of two general types. One is acute effects on the brain, in particular, that occur during the operation when the amount of drugs in the body is high. The other is chronic effects from drug residues that remain in the body for years.
Antibiotics are another very toxic class of drugs that are used liberally after many types of surgery. Ask for as few antibiotics as possible, after surgery. Surgeons may be loathe to “wait and see” if antibiotics are needed, but this is best if you are following a nutritional balancing program, since you will be much less prone to infection after surgery.
Other toxic products used during and after surgery may include toxic soaps and cleaning solutions, muscle and nerve relaxants, tranquilizers, IV solutions, and perhaps many others. Proper nutritional balancing support can significantly help the liver and kidneys remove these drugs faster and more effectively. Otherwise, some drugs persist in the body for years, weakening the body often spoiling your quality of life, even if the surgery is successful.
4. Another risk of all surgery is venous stasis during long operations due to a lack of movement by the patient. This is sometimes a problem because the patient is unconscious, hard to move, and usually has no place to be moved or turned over. As a result, blood can pool in the legs or other places. This impairs circulation and can increase the risk of shock, blood clots and emboli that can cause death very quickly.
5. Blood clots, thromboses and/or embolisms. This occurs for at least four reasons:
a) Surgeons must often tie off arteries and veins that must be cut in order to reach deeper body structures or to remove diseased organs. This disturbs the artery or vein and can cause a small piece of plaque or cholesterol to break off and enter the general circulation.
b) Surgeons must often manipulate and handle delicate organs and other structures inside the body.
c) As mentioned above, surgical patients must lie down motionless, often for hours during surgery. They often must also lay in bed for hours or days afterwards. This impairs circulation and is known to increase the risk of venous stasis and blood clots.
d) The use of certain drugs during, and perhaps before and after surgery, may also increase the risk of blood clots.
For all these reasons, a tiny piece of plaque in an artery or vein can break loose and float through the blood and lodge in the heart, lungs or brain. This causes a heart attack, a pulmonary embolism or a stroke, respectively. All of these events can be lethal, and often are.
6. The risk of uncontrolled bleeding or hemorrhaging. This is an important risk of some types of surgery involving organs or areas of the body that have a good blood supply. It is also easy for a surgeon to nick an artery or vein without even realizing it, since some surgery is quite delicate. Also, bleeding can occur simply due to manipulating and moving around the tissues, especially in an older, unhealthy person. Such bleeding may stop by itself, but often it does not, and it can lead to death quite easily and quickly.
7. Scarring or adhesions after surgery is another important risk factor. This happens very often, especially with surgery to the intestinal tract, nervous system, and kidneys. Scarring and adhesions after surgery, even the best surgery, can be devastating and can cause stenosis of the spinal canal leading to chronic pain, stenosis of the ureters leading to kidney failure if not noticed quickly, intestinal blockage, pain syndromes, and many other problems.
Scarring is common and perhaps inevitable to a degree. However, if the body is healthy and balanced, particularly the metabolism of zinc and copper, it happens less. I know this because clients report that their skin scars fade away when they follow a nutritional balancing program.
8. Inadequate healing or recovery after surgery. Surgery may go well, but the patient’s wound site may not close and heal well. This is also common. This can leave open sores, improperly fused bones, layers of tissues that do not bond correctly or adhere, scars, sclerosis and fibrosis. All of these can leave the patient disabled to some degree.
In this arena, nutritional balancing is quite amazing, in my experience. Even just a significant improvement in the diet, drinking water and lifestyle can have a significant impact on the rate and quality of tissue healing and regeneration after surgery.
9. Avoiding nutrient depletion due to surgery and post-operatively. Surgery almost always results in nutrient depletion. Reasons for this are:
a) The stress and trauma of surgery forces the body to use up more nutrients.
b) Many people are asked to fast for 12 to 24 hours before surgery to reduce the risk of some complications.
c) Most hospital food and water is not that good, so if one is in the hospital preparing for surgery, nutrition may suffer.
d) After surgery, one may not want to eat much, may not be able to eat due to nausea or other symptoms, or eating may be restricted for a few days or more.
e) The use of anesthetic drugs, antibiotics, or other medications further deplete nutrients. In addition, they can interfere with proper digestion and absorption of nutrients for weeks or longer after surgery.
Improving the diet and taking extra nutrients before and after surgery is therefore ALWAYS helpful and probably should be mandated by the government!
10. Surgery always cuts through some acupuncture meridians, and other subtle anatomical structures. This may or may not be a problem, but it does occur.
11. Surgical errors and other mistakes before, during and after surgery. These are very common and numerous. Surgery is a complex process requiring preparation, administration of numerous drugs, at times, lengthy recoveries, at times, rehabilitation, and more. All of these processes can go wrong, and often do.
SURGICAL ERRORS, AND HOW TO HELP PREVENT THEM
About 20 people a week get surgery on the wrong arm, the wrong leg or the wrong lung. About another 20 per week have surgery on the right spot, but they get the wrong operation. About 39 times per week, a surgeon accidentally leaves something inside a patient, such as a piece of surgical equipment. This all adds up to about 4000 surgical mistakes every year!
One cannot totally prevent these mistakes. However, here are several steps you can take to minimize them:
1. When discussing surgery with a doctor, bring an “advocate” or “historian” with you, especially if the person is elderly or ill. Someone should write down everything the doctor tells the patient such as the name of the operation, where it is, how it will be done, and so forth. This person should then accompany the patient in the hospital as much as possible, keeping an eye on things, checking drugs and checking the chart to make sure everything is done right.
2. Invest in a magic marker. While it may seem unusual, it is fine to mark on your body with a circle where the operation is to be, and tell the doctor to look for it.
3. Meet your doctor. Ask to speak with the surgeon just before surgery begins, and don’t let them start the anesthesia until you do this. Tell him you have a last minute question. The question is not so important. What is important is that he knows who you are, and what procedure will be done. If the doctor looks puzzled or surprised, get out fast.
4. Hold a family meeting about this now. Be prepared if someone needs emergency surgery to follow the steps above. Tell everyone in the family to watch everything the doctors do, since the family member undergoing surgery may not be able to do so.
AVOIDING SURGERY
By following a complete nutritional balancing program, many surgeries can be totally avoided. These may include joint replacement or other joint surgery, some hysterectomies, prostate surgery, tonsillectomies, most cancer surgery including skin cancers, bypass operations, eye surgery, and many others. Please keep this in mind if surgery has been recommended to you.
Surgeries that are necessary include emergencies such as broken bones and other results of accidents, and hemorrhoid surgery if the problem is severe and not responding to a nutritional balancing program. Clearing out hemorrhoids will allow one to do coffee enemas, and this is a great benefit of this surgery, at times.
Other necessary or helpful common surgeries may include the removal of ovarian cysts, uterine fibroid tumors, and other benign tumors. These are difficult to eliminate, many times, and removal may be best if they are interfering with one’s life. For example, in order to become pregnant, some women need to have their uterine fibroid tumors removed. Nutritional balancing may not eliminate them.
SUMMARY OF THE BENEFITS OF NUTRITIONAL BALANCING PROGRAMS
a) As stated above, nutritional balancing will help anyone to completely avoid many types of surgery. This, of course, is the best way to reduce surgical risks.
b) If surgery is needed, fewer complications will occur. Complications of surgery are usually the cause of severe disability and death from surgery. Statistically, healthy individuals have fewer complications, as might be imagined. Those who take vitamins generally do better, even if the supplements are quite random.
c) If a complication occurs, such as bleeding or infection, it will be less severe and handled more easily.
d) Surgical recovery will be faster and less eventful.
e) If one should need emergency surgery, a well-nourished and well-balanced body chemistry will survive all types of accidents, injuries and surgeries much better, in my experience.
IF TIME PERMITS, A NUTRITIONAL BALANCING PROGRAM BEFORE SURGERY IS BEST
If you have at least one or more months before you will have surgery, by far the best approach to prepare for surgery is to follow a complete nutritional balancing program. This will enhance your overall health much better than any other method that I am aware of. It may also reduce the chances of complications of surgery. If you are fortunate, it might even reduce or eliminate the need for the surgery, depending on what the operation will be.
If, however, your surgery is coming up in a week or two, then there will not be time to embark on a full nutritional balancing program. In this case, the section below discusses simple ways to prepare quickly for an operation.
BASIC PRE-OPERATIVE SURGICAL PREPARATION
1. If you are already following a nutritional balancing program, stay on the entire program. Do not stop it before surgery, and continue it as soon as possible after surgery.
2. If you are not on a nutritional balancing program, begin immediately to follow the Slow Oxidizer Diet. Most people are slow oxidizers. A few are fast oxidizers and need much more fat and oils in their diet.
3. Do foot reflexology sessions, at least two daily, for a few days before surgery and at least a few days afterwards. Ideally, have a friend or family member assist you after surgery because you will usually be somewhat weak and tired.
4. Be sure you are well-hydrated before and after surgery. Drink spring water, ideally. Water in plastic bottles are fine. Adults need about 3 quarts or 3 liters of water daily, and children need less.
Do not drink reverse osmosis water, distilled water, alkaline water or other designer waters. In most cases, they are not as good.
5. Use a red heat lamp preferably before surgery, and on the wound site after surgery. This can speed the healing of wounds and may reduce a tendency for infection. The energy of a standard 250-watt red incandescent ‘heat lamp’ is very compatible with human physiology and acts as a type of nutrient. Do not use other types of lamps such as halogen bulbs or red LEDs.
6. Right before surgery, a nurse or other person should perform a colonic irrigation on the patient. An enema before surgery was formerly standard practice. Now it is ignored, or perhaps a laxative is given. However, operating when the colon is empty and clean is significantly safer because fewer poisons are generated there, and this reduces the toxicity of the surgery for the patient. I hope some day this practice will be revived for surgical patients.
7. Before surgery, make sure the patient is well-hydrated. This will make surgery safer. It is not always easy to assess. However, drinking a good spring water such as Evian water will help assure the patient is well-hydrated.
8. If surgery is elective, do not do surgery under certain conditions. Be extra careful or wait if the hair mineral analysis indicates a four lows pattern. It is simply not as safe. Also, wait if a person’s oxidation rate is extremely fast or extremely slow, or when the person’s sodium/potassium ratio is less than about 2.
If you must do surgery when the above conditions are present, use extra caution to avoid problems.
9. Take a few basic nutritional supplements. I will emphasize the most critical ones needed by most people:
Kelp. Kelp supplies many vital nutrients in a convenient capsule form. Taking three to six 600 mg capsules per day for a week before surgery, at the very least, can alleviate the worst mineral deficiencies in most people. Taking it for much longer before surgery would be better, at least for a month or two.
Zinc & Copper. These are needed to heal wounds of all kinds. Zinc and copper are needed for the formation of connective tissue, the main tissue used to heal all wounds in the body.
Zinc, in particular, also helps prevent and treat all infections, as does copper, to a lesser degree. A good zinc dosage for an adult would be 20 to 30 mg per day for at least two weeks prior to surgery.
A good dosage of copper is 1-2 mg daily before, during and after surgery. I would take these in isolated form, rather than in a multivitamin. In a multivitamin, the problem is that other nutrients may compete with zinc and copper, especially iron.
Vitamins A and D. Other nutrients that could be added to a pre-surgical workup are vitamin A and D. These, also, help the body fight infection, help maintain calcium, a very important mineral needed for wound healing and blood clotting, and these also help the body in general fight stress and maintain balance in the wake of stressful events.
The recommended dosage of A is about 20,000 iu or more daily. Start with at least this amount and ideally a week, at least, before your surgery and continue all nutrients for at least three weeks after surgery.
Vitamin D can also be taken in large doses safely. Take about 5,000 iu daily for at least a week before and for several weeks after surgery.
Bioflavinoids. Another set of nutrients that may be helpful are called vitamin P or bioflavinoids. These are needed, along with vitamin C, to strengthen cell membranes, especially those of capillaries that are often cut during surgery.
While other nutrients would also be superb, especially all the trace minerals and a few more vitamins, these are the most critical ones.
Bioflavinoids are a group of nutrients with names such as quercitin, rutin, hesperidan and others. They can help prevent excessive bleeding and hemorrhaging. They are usually sold together and one can take at least 1000 mg daily for a week before and two weeks after surgery.
Cooked vegetables and some of the whole grains also contain many bioflavinoids. Such foods are blue corn chips, carrots and other orange vegetables, yellow and green cooked vegetables, not raw ones.
Vitamin C. Some people need more vitamin C, though do not overdo on it. A good dosage for most people is up to 2,000 mg daily. This will not cause diarrhea in most people.
Vitamin C can help reduce bleeding, can control some infections, and can assist wound healing.
Omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients. Many other nutrients are deficient in many people today. Among the most important are the omega-3 fatty acids. Eat a few cans of sardines before surgery or take a supplement of these, about 1000 mg daily.
NUTRIENTS TO AVOID BEFORE SURGERY
Certain nutrients, if given in excessive amounts, are not helpful for surgery. The most important are those that tend to cause increased blood clotting time, or less tendency for blood to clot. While these help some people, in others they may make surgery more hazardous.
This may be one reason surgeons stay away from all nutrients, though it is a silly reason. Let us examine these.
Vitamin E. Too much vitamin E can cause more bleeding in some people. It does this by acting as a powerful anti-oxidant, which is normally a good idea. During surgery, however, the reaction of the tissues to the knife is such that oxygen is present and this enables the blood vessels to clot.
Therefore, anything that interferes with this could, theoretically, assist the body as an anti-oxidant and therefore slow the clotting of the wound. Having said this, a little vitamin E, up to 400 iu/day, is fine and, in fact, recommended. Higher doses are not recommended.
Nattokinase. This is an enzyme that thins the blood, to some degree. It is helpful to prevent or reduce blood clots. However, too much would not be helpful before or right after most surgery unless one needs it to normalize blood clotting.
If you take this nutrient all the time, I suggest stopping it a few days before surgery. If you are not taking it, do not start just before a surgical procedure of any kind, even the removal of a tooth, for example.
PREVENTIVE COLLOIDAL SILVER TO REDUCE SURGICAL INFECTIONS
Before any operation, I suggest taking colloidal silver as a way to prevent or mitigate infection. One should not need preventive antibiotics, in this case, although a doctor might still want a patient to take antibiotics.
The dosage of a low-potency colloidal silver (up to 100 parts per million silver) is 2 to 3 tablespoons daily for a few days before surgery, and for a week or two afterwards. I prefer Arabesque brand or Sovereign Silver brand of colloidal silver. Homemade silver is not reliable enough.
WARNING: IF POSSIBLE, GIVE YOUR OWN BLOOD BEFORE SURGERY IF THERE IS ANY CHANCE YOU WILL NEED BLOOD
If you may need blood, always give your own blood preferably, before surgery rather than using just anyone’s blood. Blood transfusions always carry some risk, especially today when there are many infections in the people. Blood also carries toxic metals, parasites and other problems at times. These cannot be filtered out.
Another alternative if blood is needed are some of the other types of blood products, instead of whole blood, when it is possible to use it.
If you may need a lot of blood, try to find a friend or relative with your blood type whom you know if fairly healthy, and ask that person to donate blood before surgery so it is there if you need it. Donating blood is a wonderful gesture of friendship. Although it depletes the body a little, it is far better than accepting just any blood from a blood bank today.
DURING SURGERY
1. Rub the patient’s feet. Ideally, assign a nurse to this duty, although one of the surgical nurses could do it, as well. It relaxes the nervous system, and has many other benefits. For more, read Reflexology on this website.
2. Have an ozone air purifier in the surgical operating theatre. This will increase the oxygen content of the air to a small degree, which also increases the safety of surgery.
AFTER SURGERY
DIET
Post surgery recovery should also be uneventful if one eats lightly, but very healthfully. Carrot juice, wheat grass juice and plenty of chicken soup and vegetables should be the main part of your diet. Do not eat heavily after any surgery. Also, avoid all junk food, sugar, ice cream, and the like.
Other important things are rest as much as possible, get out in the sun and get as much fresh air as possible without becoming chilled. Try to sleep with a window open at least a crack, for example, and try to be outside in the sun each day, even if it is only for a few minutes.
DRINKING WATER
Try to have a friend bring in your drinking water, preferably spring water only. Hospitals use tap water, which contains fluoride, chlorine and many other toxins. Be sure to drink plenty of water, rather than eat a lot of food for a few days. A fast of a day or two is not a bad idea after a major surgery.
QUIET PEACE AND REST
Try to get as much rest after surgery as possible. Do not allow a lot of visitors for a day or two, and preferably do not allow nurses to wake you up at all hours of the night. Try to be in a quiet room, preferably with some sunshine.
AN ADVOCATE OR HELPER
Any time one is in the hospital, if possible have a friend or partner read your chart, talk with the nurses and oversee everything that goes on related to your case. This is vital, at times. Hospitals make many mistakes, unfortunately. This can be giving incorrect medication, or worse. The causes are overwork, fatigued personnel and general ill health of doctors, nurses and others. For these reasons, it is very wise to have a friend and advocate hover over the doctors and nurses whenever one must be in the hospital.
REMOVING ANESTHESIA DRUGS AND OTHER TOXINS FROM THE BODY
A very important step after a long operation, or any operation in many cases, is to remove the anesthesia and other drug residues as fast as possible. The safest, fastest and most reliable way to do this, in my experience, is to follow a complete nutritional balancing program administered only by one of the Approved Practitioners listed on this website. A year or more on a complete nutritional balancing program is needed to remove the bulk of the anesthesia and other drugs.
If going on a complete program is not possible, I would at least follow the Free Program listed on this website.
COFFEE ENEMAS, NOT PAINKILLING DRUGS
Instead of taking pain-killing drugs after surgery, if possible use coffee enemas daily to relieve pain. Coffee enemas began as a method of reliveing pain in wounded soldiers during World War I. For more on this excellent method of pain control, read Coffee Enemas on this website.
Sources: Lawrence Wilson, MD
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