The Optimized Patient: How to Prepare for, Survive, and Recover from Spine Surgery

Our bodies are programmed to heal, but too often we are unaware that we are working against our own healing. The damaging effects of incisions, anesthesia, antibiotics and opioids demand that you Optimize before and after surgery for your best recovery. No matter how perfect the surgery, your surgeon needs your commitment and help to achieve your goal of a pain-free life.

The Optimized Patient offers insights from a team of six spine patients, two physical therapists, a chiropractor and a nutritionist all dedicated to helping you prepare to be an Optimized Patient. In the time it takes to read this book, you will have gained the insights from all those patients, surgeons, and experts as if you were in a small group setting where you could ask all the questions you wanted.What you end up with is the ability to make a well-informed decision about whether or not spine surgery is right for you. And, should you make that decision, you will have the best information possible to achieve what every spine patient wants: to be you again.No matter how perfect the surgery, your surgeon needs your commitment and help to achieve your goal of a pain-free life."Three times Mr. Warren has made the commitment to optimize in order to support his clinical recovery phase. What he has learned is critically important to anyone facing the challenge of spine surgery. The Optimized Patient is a straight-forward, super-informative and enjoyable book written to help you achieve your best possible surgical outcome." -Dr. Sanjay Khurana, MD, Spine Surgeon

Kirkus Review Posted 11/21/19:
“Patient, heal thyself” is the message in this primer on recovering from surgery.Although screenwriter, film producer, and financial services professional Warren’s (Drop Debt, 2011) advice here is applicable to other types of surgeries, it centers on spinal surgery, and includes specific measures that patients can take to “optimize” their healing. The author underwent several spine operations after a 2010 car crash, and his measures include nonsurgical, alternative treatments for back pain: injections of cortisone or epidural anesthetics, pre-operation physical conditioning to strengthen core muscles to withstand surgical trauma, post-operation physical therapy exercises,and more. The author swears by aquatherapy, which involves walking in a pool, pre-op and post-op. On pain management, he suggests taking opioids to get rest, but to stop as soon as possible to avoid addiction. Post-op homecare procedures include using special equipment to negotiate beds, chairs, and the bathing process without bending,lifting, or twisting motions. Warren also devotes much attention to digestion and nutrition; anesthetics, antibiotics, and opioids, he says, can paralyze the gut and wipe out its microbiome, leading to constipation and poor nutrition,necessitating probiotic foods to restore proper function. He further recommends a diet that’s high in fresh fruits,vegetables, and whole grains, and low in meat and sugar, and as much exercise as one’s spine can tolerate. Above all,he emphasizes the patient’s psychological “will to get well” by pursuing every possible measure to hasten recovery. Overall, Warren provides a lot of useful material in this book.

Kirkus Review