This may sound INCREDIBLY weird, but the symptoms you speak of, try replacing the milk you drink with organic raw milk (difficult to find and in some states it is illegal to sell), it’s highly recommended by some osteopaths, naturopaths, alternative medicine doctors and even some well-renowned strength coaches. Check http://www.realmilk.com/ for more info and to see if you can get some where you live.

Check Ibn Qayyim’s book on Medicine of the Prophet (saw). If you the background of organic raw milk on the real milk website, you’ll kind of get an idea of what they’re talking about.

hm.. while your doctor may have behaved unprofessionally in his flippant recommendation for the surgery and inadequate explanation of the risks / after effects, i can say that i recently underwent a septoplasty for a similar tho lesser problem. I have for years suffered from restricted airflow through the left side of my nose and this creates a problem for me while sleeping and especially during sinus infections..

yes there was swelling and a moderate amount of pain ( it is surgery afterall), but within a week i was back to my normal day to day activities. and not to mention, my breathing is much much easier, alhamdulillah.

i suspect that perhaps you over reacted to the prospect of surgery? either way, maybe you should find a better doctor.

Salaam, hope you’re feeling well now iA :P

I think no matter what kind of surgery you’re going for, watching videos or looking at pictures is a bad idea to begin with. You’re not exactly going to go ‘Oh, that looks fun’ and go for it once you’ve seen it – even if it’s important. I’d understand that type of research if you’re a surgeon or have some sort of medical background – that way you’d be able to understand the pictures/videos, and not get irrationally freaked out. You’re better off reading about the procedure, and avoiding sensational stories of worst case scenarios made real – there’s risk associated with everything, you just have to weigh it against the need.

I totally agree that elective cosmetic surgery is Islamicly wrong, but I worry about the extent you can take that to. Maybe not in your case, since you had other reasons for not wanting the surgery. But take wisdom teeth extractions – for most people they’re not completely essential. I had mine out because they were impacted, and the gum around one occasionally became infected and inflamed. Was that altering Allah’s creation? After all, Allah clearly willed that I should have impacted teeth, and they weren’t harming my health (just my quality of life!). It took me like a week to recover from mine, and of course there were risks associated – like nerve damage or jaw breakage. Rare, but risky nonetheless.

Or take orthodontic treatment – most people get it for aesthetic reasons, and again technically you’re changing Allah’s creation. Shouldn’t people with malocclusions just stick to having badly aligned teeth as Allah decreed, and take the associated non-fatal problems as a test from Him – decay due to poor access, risk of trauma, psychological damage of people bulling them for their buck teeth, etc etc…

You could even that logic to cleft lip, or other deformities that wouldn’t directly cause death. Slippery slope really. Isn’t it safer to say if there’s a sound medical reason for the procedure and it’s not purely for vanity, it’s okay? And I don’t think relief of pain = vanity.

(by the way, the most disgusting surgery video I ever saw was of the removal of nasal polyps [<-- no pictures in these links thankfully!]. I can deal with blood and gore, but for some reason watching fleshy masses in the nose being drilled out with suction really turned my stomach).

Good points by everyone, especially McPagal’s idea of a slippery slope and what constitutes necessary versus unnecessary “alteration.” I agree that the doctor’s attitude – even up to when I was being prepped for surgery, when she just dismissed my concerns – probably influenced how I saw the surgical option. She barely tried any medical treatment before jumping to surgery. However, one of the things that made me feel like I was going for something unnecessary was that my symptoms didn’t seem to be as severe as other people’s. It made it seem all the more “elective” and like I was choosing to get remodeled on a whim.

FWIW, when I researched the plastic surgery story all the knowledgeable sources I interviewed said plastic surgery for something like a cleft palate is completely okay, as is anything that is life threatening or severely impacts someone’s quality of life.

What about Lasik? Where on the spectrum do you think that falls?

Alhamdulillah it’s good that you did your own research and stuck to your instincts and didn’t get the surgery done. Some people have told me to do the laser eye surgery as a “quick-fix” to my weak eyesight, but I’m always too suspicious of such procedures and the risk involved which has kept me away from them so far. Contacts work just fine! But I’ll say again that I’m glad you were able to make a decision you were comfortable with mashallah, instead of relying on your doctor’s words, like most people end up doing.

I had one of my front teeth knocked out many years ago by an repeated elbows to the face (grabbing a rebound next to a college basketball player) and had to have surgery for that. I remember that day, they had someone who was seeing it for the first time, and the dentist told that person, you may not be able to handle it the first time, so be ready to leave, and leave he did, within one minute. I didn’t feel any of it and the tooth works quite well, alhamdulillaah.

Siraaj

Salam,

I think you just chickened out and are using the religion as an excuse.

Lasik is laser eye surgery right? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it really.. I mean, the alternatives are wearing glasses (which aren’t exactly natural) or contacts (which have just about the same effect as surgery except with more hassle). It’s not really vain, it’s just for convenience. Personally, I’m sticking with contacts right now – I’d be too worried to mess with my eyes. I know the chances of something going wrong are remote, but if you did end up with damaged eyes you’d regret it forever. It’s not really fixable…

Here’s another one: orthognathic surgery. It’s basically the process of moving the jaws – either making the top one bigger and the bottom one smaller if the patients lower jaw sticks out too far (with the bottom teeth in front of the top one); or the other way round if the bottom jaw is too far back. It can make a huge difference to a persons life, but it’s really invasive (since they’re basically breaking the bone up and re-setting it). Is that okay? Does bad jaw alignment count as a deformity?

There’s also surgery that can be done to pin ears back if they stick out too much – I think that’s bordering on the unnecessary side, since you can cover up sticky-outy ears with your hair or whatever, and there’s no medical need. But can you explain that to a kid who’s getting bullied for their ears?

I saw a program on TV a while ago, it was about this guy who had a huge tumour covering his whole face. It really was hard to look at, and he stayed at home a lot because of the abuse he got on the street. The fact was, it wouldn’t have gotten so bad if he’d had surgery at an earlier age when it hadn’t progressed so much – but his mother was a Jehovah’s witness and refused to let him have a blood transfusion :(

Sister Ruth,

You’re welcome.

Our deen makes things like this very easy.

Everything we do in life has a risk asosciated with it. We weigh the risk/benefit according to the best of our abilities, then pray salat-ul-istakhara and then go ahead with our decision, relying on Allah (SWT). It’s quite simple.

There is no need to come up with philiosophical./religious gymnastics because you felt squeamish going under the surgeon’s knife. And BTW, every surgical procedure is like what you saw on you tube – and it looks pretty bad to most lay people.