- I'm about to tell you a story
about an injury that I had,
that then got worse from a medical error.
Then got worse
with the worst medical encounter I've ever heard of,
let alone I've had.
This is gonna be a dramatic story,
but it's gonna end with a few tidbits
that you must know,
to prevent this from happening to you.
Let's get started.
Bee whoop!
This story all starts off
with me wanting to improve my wrist strength,
my grip strength,
because I wanted to have stronger wrists for boxing.
And I said, "You know what,
"let me do dead hangs."
Where I would hold on and work these flexors in my arm.
And instead, what ended up happening,
'cause I went from zero to a hundred,
which is the worst mistake you could do with fitness,
and I knew that,
and I still did it.
I developed a medial epicondylitis,
which is known as golfer's elbow.
When you overuse the tendons here,
to flex your wrist like this,
it's called medial epicondylitis.
If you overuse the extenders,
like when you're playing tennis,
that's called lateral epicondylitis.
So I had the medial version of this.
And I was like, "No big deal.
"A little physical therapy,
"a little icing,
"maybe anti-inflammatories,
"and it will go away."
I've treated this dozens of times,
even in the last few years at my practice.
However, it became a major, major problem.
The more that I would box,
especially punching the heavy bag or the speed bag,
I constantly noticed that the pain was increasing.
So while doing physical therapy,
while even having my match against iDubbbz,
the pain never went away.
But I knew once my fight ended
and I would have some time to relax,
that I would eventually go do either a steroid injection
or perhaps try acupuncture.
I'm very much evidence-based in medicine,
and while the evidence for acupuncture isn't great,
usually it's a low-risk tool
that could potentially help in a lot of cases.
In fact, I have a torn labrum
that I've had ever since I was like 15, 16 years old,
from working out improperly.
I had two sessions of acupuncture on it.
That completely went away,
even though it bothered me for years.
So I've had a good experience with acupuncture.
Find someone reputable in the city,
find out that they're good with sports,
go to the session,
very professional session.
He explains that he's seen this a lot in fighters
because we're constantly trying to keep our wrists straight
like this,
which means that there's a lot of flexion.
Especially when you make contact against something heavy.
He knew what he was talking about,
but was not overly confident.
Not like, "Oh, we're definitely gonna fix this."
And I think that's something important to look out for
when you're going for a first time medical visit.
Did the acupuncture treatment,
I was sore.
Incredibly sore the first day,
'cause he had a unique style of using the needles.
Like he would twirl the needle
or maybe even flicking the needle.
Again, a technique that I've never seen before.
After the soreness went away,
the next day,
my pain and symptoms that were there for eight months prior,
went down like 80%.
So it basically became unnoticeable,
unless I was doing something really strong.
And I was like, "Wow, this is amazing."
Again, from just one time,
one session doing acupuncture,
my pain is gone.
But it doesn't end there.
I had scheduled a second session at his recommendation.
When the day of that second session came around,
I actually had some second thoughts.
"It's already so much better,
"should I even bother going again?
"And I'm getting all these needles.
"It's limited benefit now."
But I'm like, "You know what?
"I trust this person.
"Let me go."
And I went
and it was a little bit more painful this time.
A little bit more aggressive I would say.
I was sore for multiple days.
So I like really didn't move around much after that session.
And then I developed the weirdest set of symptoms
that I've ever had in my musculoskeletal system.
And it's because I developed true nerve pain.
When the acupuncturist was doing the acupuncture,
it seems like he either hit my nerve
or created some sort of scar tissue around the nerve,
that whenever I reached for something away from my body
and there was tension placed on the skin,
this area of my arm lit up,
as if someone was holding a lighter.
But then when I would press on the area,
there would be no pain.
It's not like I had an injured muscle or bone,
or some kind of tissue here.
I went to hang out with one of my friends,
and he like pulled me by my arm,
and just gently pulled my skin back.
I fell on the floor
with the most intense pain you can imagine.
Went back to the acupuncturist because I sent him an email,
and he said that he could fix it.
Didn't fix it.
Probably just aggravated it further to be honest.
I wait a week.
I wait two weeks.
Not going away.
And honestly, I boxed through it.
It doesn't hurt normally.
It's only if I make like a really exaggerated movement.
And as I did that,
I noticed that the nerve pain would get worse over time.
And I was really getting concerned.
Am I doing permanent damage to this nerve?
So I said, you know what,
I'm gonna find the top nerve specialist
pain management specialist in New York.
Because what my theory was,
if that nerve created some sort of adhesion to the skin,
through scar tissue,
maybe a hematoma,
like a little bleeding that happened
when he put the needles in,
or maybe a neuroma formed.
There's a procedure that you can do,
called, the hydrodissection of the nerve,
where you actually inject near the nerve,
under ultrasound guidance,
and put in liquid in there.
It doesn't even have to be super medicated liquid.
And it opens up the nerve,
and frees it up from its adhesions.
So I got this specialist,
found the best one with the most five-star reviews.
It had a legitimate website,
a good medical background,
made TV appearances that I watched a few years ago
that I thought were really good.
So I called,
scheduled,
made the appointment.
Cash only by the way,
which is a little ridiculous,
but I was like, "Fine, I'll pay the consultation fee."
Very expensive.
It was ridiculous, it was like $600.
And I said, "You know what?
"This is really important.
"It's my career, boxing.
"I need to figure this out."
(record scratching) When I come in,
the doctor does not look like his picture.
He looks like something happened to him with his health.
In his picture he looked very fit.
Just significantly younger.
It looks like he's confined to his chair.
He has some sort of very coarse tremor,
where his hand is consistently moving as he's talking.
And at times he was even mumbling,
where I couldn't understand the speech
that he was presenting to me.
And I said, "Okay, this is no reason
"to jump to conclusions here.
"Maybe something happened with his health
"but he's still a great doctor.
"Look at these reviews.
"Let's have a conversation and find out."
So I sit down,
we start having what I thought to be a conversation.
And I tell him that this happened
about two and a half, three weeks ago.
And from then,
he just talks for like 30, 40 minutes
about potential treatments
before examining me.
Before asking any real questions about the details
of what happened,
or what symptoms I'm experiencing.
And already was recommending injections of an antidepressant
into my arm.
I know oral medications that are labeled as antidepressants
can work for nerve pain.
But to inject them is not something that is typically done.
He also recommended PRP as an option.
Doesn't have great evidence
for a lot of the things that we currently use it for.
So I asked like after 40 minutes of talking,
and very difficult to understand him,
what my oral treatment options were, if any.
And he basically said that I was gonna get fat
if I took any of the oral options.
And I found that to be very aggressive
and a strange comment to make,
because I didn't even know
what oral options he was considering,
or what he would do.
So he kind of shut that down right away.
He said, "But I wanna do an ultrasound."
I said, "You know, I'm fine to do an ultrasound."
But watching him perform the ultrasound,
he was unsteady.
His tremor was preventing him from getting a clear image.
There was like reads being done of the ultrasound
that I understood,
that I thought were really highly inaccurate,
or poorly explained to me as a patient.
And the ultrasound was done in the wrong portion of my arm.
He then changed the treatment plan completely.
He didn't really ask where my symptoms were,
he just started looking at my elbow.
Another thing that stood out from the visit,
was he told me another patient's case.
Said the full name of the patient,
said their age.
These are all privacy matters
that should never be discussed with another patient.
You could say,
"I have another patient in your age group," or whatever,
but you can't say their full name.
And at that point,
I was like, "I need to get outta here,
"'cause this is weird."
This doctor didn't do a history,
didn't do a physical exam.
Recommended two treatments,
changed it to a third treatment.
This is all for cash.
The doctor does not look like the picture.
Like I didn't know what was going on.
And now I understand why people don't speak up
in stressful situations,
'cause I genuinely didn't know what was happening.
I thought it was like an episode of, "Punk'd."
That's how bad it was.
It was probably my weirdest, worst patient encounter,
I've ever seen.
It was scary because I could see how
if you don't have a medical understanding
of what he was saying,
there could be some situations where you're like,
"Oh, well this person's a doctor.
"They have a license.
"I'm gonna let them do their thing
"and inject whatever they say."
But man, how scary is that?
He could've, if I would've let him,
injected me with antidepressants for huge sums of money
with no real explanation as to why it should work.
The one thing that they told me,
which I found ridiculous was,
"Oh, it's similar to vampire facials."
And I just wanted to say like,
"My symptoms have nothing to do with vampire facials."
Everything that could go wrong,
breaking down in a medical visit,
went wrong here.
And when we told 'em that after the visit,
all they said was, "Oh, do you need more information
"about what treatments we do?"
We said, "No, no, no.
"What we're saying is we're worried
"about the wellbeing of your other patients,
"as well as we think we had a horrible visit
"because no exam was even performed."
They said, "Sorry you feel that way.
"Here's your money back.
"Hope you heal up quickly."
Like what?
Upon leaving,
I realized I needed to reach out to some other people.
Luckily, through social media I found some great doctors,
who I'm thanking right here,
that have helped me out with my arm.
I ended up finding two case studies online
of people who had nerve damage due to needles,
and they had similar symptoms to me,
and they did well with some oral medications
including prednisone.
So I ended up using that for a period of a week.
My symptoms got a lot better.
They're continuing to get better.
So I'm slowly recovering.
I'm not 100% but my elbow pain went away.
So the acupuncture worked.
How interesting is that?
Like the acupuncture gave me this negative outcome,
but it solved my initial problem.
But all that really goes to show is a few key takeaways.
One, is you have the right over your body
to accept or deny treatment.
So if any doctor or medical professional
is making you feel uncomfortable?
Do not be afraid to say no and advocate for yourself.
You don't need to get any procedure.
If you don't understand the procedure, stop it.
Don't get it done.
You need to adequately be able to assess risks and benefits.
The recommendation from your doctor for the treatment,
might be correct.
I'm not saying they're wrong.
All I'm saying is if you aren't comfortable?
Something's wrong in that situation
that needs to be corrected,
before the procedure is done.
Next, when you're going to get
some sort of alternative treatment like a acupuncture,
know that is not 100% safe.
You know, frequently I talk about acupuncture,
and say, "You know, it's safer than the surgical option.
"So if you could avoid surgery, it's better."
That does that mean it's 100% safe.
Clearly, it helped my original problem,
but then it created a new one that has been a real big pain.
I think it's like the saying that Paul Offit said
on this channel.
He pointed out that anything that has evidence to work
or is proven to work,
also has to have negative effects.
Because if it doesn't have negative effects
that means it likely doesn't do anything in the first place.
As far as my arm goes, (elbow cracks)
hopefully it'll continue to recover,
and I'll be back in the boxing ring before you know it.
Check out all the things you should never do
in the hospital.
Click here to check that out.
And is always stay happy and healthy.
And stay alert, not anxious.
(upbeat music)