Complications from a Supposedly “Straight Forward” Medical Procedure

I recently took 10 days off and went to Malaysia to see my mum.  My mum had fallen from the stairs a few months back and had a fracture to her lumbar 1 vertebrae.  She was given a procedure of vertebroplasty on her L1 which involved pumping in medical cement, polymethylmethacrylate into her vertebrae.  A leak of the substance into her nervous system caused problems with her speech, control of arms and legs and she had some days of diarrhea. At its worst, she had no control of herself when sitting on a chair and would slip down to the floor.  I’m glad to report that she is in a much better state now.  Before she signed up for the vetebroplasty procedure, I offered her natural bone knitting options for knitting her fracture by building bones using natural calcium and symphytum but she declined my offer.  It was because I mentioned that it would take a good 3 months if not more to help the healing and she wanted "instant cure".  She was promised 6 weeks of being in a brace and then she would be well with the procedure.  However, this did not happen. More than 9 months after the procedure, she still found it painful to sit or sleep for more than 4 hours at a time.  She stopped using the brace after 6 months because it was not helping and creating other skin problems for her.  During my visit, I gave her intensive acupuncture therapy, twice a day, and that helped her pain management and sleep.  I also took her to an Atlas Profilax practitioner. 

At around the same time as my mum’s accident, a client of mine had an accident that fractured 3 of her metatarsals on her foot.  She was in a cast and wanted to expedite her recovery with natural medicines.  I put her on natural calcium and symphytum.  She was in a cast for a few months, but her x-rays showed recovery and she was ultimately taken off the cast.  She subsequently resumed her normal physical activities and went for an overseas holiday.

Moral of the story:  Natural medicines can work as well if not better than invasive medical procedures.  Remember most medical procedures are not cheap.  The vertebropasty procedure costs over $5,000.  So, investigate before you commit.  If some promises are too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true!