by
Lawrence Wilson, MD
© September 2011, The Center For Development
We 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 some of these questions.
In fact, nutrition can make an enormous difference in surgical
outcome. This is known in a few
hospitals that insist that all patients prepare for surgery by taking either
certain nutrients or by eating certain foods.
Proper nutritional 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.
Recovering from wounds always requires extra nutrients. However, for the most part, the
surgical community still ignores this research. This is unfortunate.
In my extensive experience with surgical cases, those people who are
well-nourished heal far more rapidly and thoroughly than the average person.
2. All surgery exposes a person to many infections. This is another major problem with all surgery, especially major
surgery with the body cavity wide open to the air for hours. It is a very common occurrence that can
take oneŐs life.
Infections can come from the air in the operating room, unclean
operating instruments, or the surgeonŐs hands if a glove breaks, which they
occasionally do. They can come
from a sneeze or cough by the surgeons or nurses, or even a flake of skin from
the surgeonŐs 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, MRI machines, 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 sterilized properly.
The proper nutritional balancing support can help strengthen the
body and significantly reduce the risk of infection due to surgery.
3. Surgery exposes the body to numerous drugs in most cases. These usually
include very toxic anesthesia drugs, antibiotics, toxic soaps and cleaning
solutions, muscle and nerve relaxants, and, at times, 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, and decreasing the strength
of the organs. Anesthesia drugs
are often the worst because they affect the brain and nervous system in
significant ways in some cases, particularly in older people, but often in
everyone.
4. Another risk of all surgery is venous stasis and blood clots. 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.
b) Surgeons must often manipulate or push around delicate
structures inside the body.
c) Surgical patients must lie down motionless often for hours
during surgery, and may need to 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 toxic 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.
The proper nutritional balancing support can help reduce this risk
of all surgery to some degree. It
can help prevent improper blood clotting, enhance circulation, enhance the
ability to form collateral circulation with substances such as vitamin E, and
balance the autonomic nervous system so that if a cardiovascular accident
occurs, the body is less liable to go into a fight-flight response that often
is the immediate cause of death.
5. The risk of uncontrolled bleeding or hemorrhaging. This is another significant risk of some types of surgery
involving organs with 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.
Once again, the proper nutritional support such as a little extra vitamin
C, zinc, copper, manganese and others can help prevent excessive bleeding and
reduce this risk to some degree.
If a person undertakes a nutritional balancing program for a few months,
at least, before surgery, this risk, and the others above, will be reduced even
further.
A preventive reason for a nutritional balancing program is that 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 our experience.
6. 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 cause
stenosis of the spinal canal leading to chronic pain, stenosis of the ureters
leading to kidney failure if not noticed quickly, intestinal blockage and
worse.
Scarring is common and perhaps inevitable to a degree. However, if the body is balanced,
particularly the metabolism of zinc and copper, and when toxic metal levels are
low, it happens much less. In
fact, a nutritional balancing program often prevents keloid scarring and can
dissolve some scars and adhesions in time.
7. Stress and shock from blood loss or just surgery itself. This is
another important risk of major surgery, in particular. A properly designed nutritional regimen
can reduce instability and chaos in the body, balance the nervous system and
thus minimize the possibility of a shock reaction due to any number of factors
such as blood loss, fevers, infection or just due to trauma to the tissues and
the organs.
8. Slow healing after surgery. This is another common risk
of surgery. The surgery itself may
go well, but the patientŐs body is incapable of closing and healing the wound
site perfectly. This can leave
open sores, improperly fused bones, layers of tissues that do not bond
correctly, scars that will not heal, sclerosis and fibrosis of tissues that is
undesirable and leads to complications, and impaired functioning as a result.
Here 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 always depletes all nutrients in the body. Reasons this occurs include:
a) Stress and trauma to the body uses 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 proscribed or limited for
a few days or more.
e) The use of anesthetic drugs, and others such as antibiotics in
particular, and other medications depletes nutrients and interferes with
digestion in many cases for weeks after surgery.
Enhancing oneŐs nutrient intake before surgery is therefore
helpful for the body to reduce food cravings and enable the body to just rest
peacefully after surgery, in order to hasten healing.
A properly designed nutritional balancing program can prevent
surgical complications and disasters at several levels:
a) Nutritional balancing will prevent or help anyone to completely
avoid many types of surgery. This,
of course, is the best way to reduce surgical risks. Operations that are rarely needed if one eats and lives
well, and improves overall health through a well-designed program include heart
surgery, lung surgery, all cancer surgery, surgery related to infections,
tonsillectomies, hysterectomies and hundreds of other surgeries.
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.
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 will also drastically
reduce the chances of complications of surgery. If you are fortunate, it might even reduce 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.
To some degree, your body will need more of all the
nutrients. The first step is to
begin immediately to follow our basic diet. Click here to read the Slow
Oxidizer Diet. Most people are
slow oxidizers. A few are fast
oxidizers and need much more fat and oils in their diet.
A second step is to take some basic nutritional supplements. I will emphasize the most critical ones
needed by most people:
Kelp. Kelp functions as a
multi-mineral vegetable, basically, that comes in a convenient capsule form.
Taking three per day for a week before surgery, at the very least, would get
rid of the worst mineral deficiencies in most people. Taking it for much longer before surgery would be better, at
least for a month or two. This
would remineralize the body a little, which is helpful for all stress
conditions.
Zinc and copper. Among these are zinc and copper. Both 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 10-20 mg per day for at least
two weeks prior to surgery, although any zinc at all is better than none.
A good dosage of copper is 1-3 mg daily before, during and after
surgery for both of these. Beware
of multivitamins and multiminerals that just contain a little copper and zinc. The problem is that other nutrients may
compete with and actually interfere with the zinc and copper, especially iron.
For this reason, we suggest specifically supplementing with the
nutrients we mention, although a multiple vitamin-mineral product with a lot of
vitamin C is probably far better than nothing at all.
Vitamin C. Another nutrient that is critical is vitamin C. If just this one nutrient were
administered to all surgical patients, even just minutes before the operation,
it would help many people heal faster and much more safely. The dosage can be up to 1,000 mg daily
or even more. This will not cause
diarrhea in most people.
Vitamin C is also linked to connective tissue healing. Indeed, one of the symptoms of scurvy
(vitamin C deficiency disease) is bleeding into the tissues, exactly what
surgeons to all they can to avoid.
Bleeding is probably the number one cause of surgical problems, with the
second being infections. The order
may be reversed for some delicate operations.
Vitamin C, however, helps both problems. Infections can often be prevented by large doses of vitamin
C, as many people know. It is also
a very inexpensive supplement, as are zinc and copper, that can be given orally
in rather high doses without side effects. This makes it a perfect candidate for supplementation before
surgery, though it is done very little.
This is a major reason for surgical problems, as most diets today are
dreadfully deficient in vitamin C.
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 at least 1,000 iu daily for at
least a week before and at least three weeks after surgery.
Bioflavinoids. Another nutrient that would be most 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.
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, may not
be helpful.
Nattokinase. Another nutrient to watch is the use of nattokinase. This is eaten in Japan as natto, a very
popular food. It is now sold as
the enzyme, nattokinase, in many stores in America and around the world.
Like
vitamin E, it is a wonderful product to prevent or reduce blood clots. Here again, however, too much would not
be helpful during surgery or post-surgically.
If
one is taking this nutrient all the time, we recommend stopping before
surgery. If one is not taking it,
do not start just before a surgical procedure of any kind, even the removal of a
tooth, for example.
The
body adapts to all the foods and nutrients we give to it. However, this takes time, so do not add
vitamin E in amounts greater than about 200 iu daily or nattokinase at all just
before a surgical procedure.
Another
area in which nutrition can be so helpful is in reducing surgical
infections. These are so common
that in many cases antibiotics and other drugs are given automatically to
minimize them.
However,
as many readers know, the antibiotics just add another layer of toxicity to the
surgery, slowing complete recovery and in some cases causing yeast and other
infections that are as bad or worse.
For
infections, one can take colloidal silver. Before a dangerous operation, anyone CAN take colloidal
silver as a precaution. One should
not need regular antibiotics, in this case, although most doctors might insist
upon it, which is okay.
The
dosage, whenever one uses colloidal silver, is about 2 tablespoons daily for a
few days, at least, and up to a week or two. I prefer a good quality commercial silver product, not a
home made product, that that is less than 100 ppm, although all of it is good. If you use the higher dosage than 100
ppm, then take much less, such as a few full droppers daily or perhaps 1
teaspoon or so daily.
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 anyoneŐs 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.
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 distilled or 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 attempt to remove the
anesthesia residue as fast as possible.
If
I had to recommend a single remedy, it would be to use a near infrared sauna
daily for at least a year. If one
cannot use a near infrared lamp sauna, then use whatever sauna you can.
Even
a hot tub or hot baths will help remove some poisons. However, I donŐt like these as much as a sauna because the
chemicals from the water will find their way into the body. Also, the water must be very hot in
order to induce sweating. It is
usually much easier to sweat in a sauna.
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