My sister's surgeon recommends expensive

Tonight, do one thing: put every bottle, box, tin and tea bag your sister takes — prescriptions, painkillers, vitamins, fish oil, herbal products, anything bought without a prescription — into one bag with the packaging, and send the surgeon or pre-op desk one message asking which to stop, which to keep, and when to restart. Surgery is Tuesday, which is exactly the window teams use for this question, so today is the right day to ask.

(1) What you already tried, and the better alternative

Fish oil, vitamin E, and herbal products started without checking. That was not a failure — it is what most families do when someone they love is facing an operation and the timeline feels long.

What the evidence actually looks like:

• No supplement has been shown to reliably improve rotator cuff repair outcomes. Small studies around vitamin C and tendon healing have suggested a possible trend, not a proven benefit. Nothing on the shelf has earned a place in her recovery on the evidence.
• Supplements are exactly the category flagged as a surgery risk. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (page checked 2026-10-20) writes: "Dietary supplements may interact with your medications or pose risks if you have certain medical problems or are going to have surgery," and notes that what is on the label "may not be what is in the product."
• The stronger, unglamorous levers are already in your kitchen: regular meals with protein, vitamin-C foods (citrus, peppers, eggs, dark greens), fluids, no smoking around the house, and the rehab the surgical team prescribes. These are free, and they are what the outcome actually tracks.

Better alternative, tonight, under 25 minutes: cook one pot meal — lentils and rice with any greens or tomato you have, or eggs and vegetables on toast, plus an orange. That is the "supplement plan" you can defend to the surgeon without buying anything.

(2) The list you take to the team — and the avoid list

Everything goes on one list, including the "just vitamins." Herbs, vitamins and supplements belong in the same bag as the prescribed boxes — most teams only ask because they don't know what is in the house.

Names most often raised for surgery, because they affect bleeding or blood pressure or are simply unpredictable around anesthesia:

• Vitamin E — commonly asked to be stopped before surgery
• Fish oil / omega-3 — evidence on bleeding is mixed; many teams still ask to stop it ahead of surgery
• Ginkgo biloba, garlic, ginger, ginseng, St John's wort, kava, yohimbe, valerian, echinacea — common in herbal blends and teas, unpredictable around anesthesia
• "Muscle/joint support" blends and weight-loss or sleep products — often unlabelled, and sometimes found to contain ingredients not on the label
• Any product bought online without a pharmacy — no label you can trust, no pharmacist who knows it

Constraints that hold:

• Nothing prescribed by her own doctor gets changed by you. Blood thinners, heart and blood-pressure medicines, thyroid medicine, diabetes medicine — you stop none of them and you do not decide about them. That question goes to the surgeon and the anesthetist in writing.
• You do not add anything. No new supplement, no new herbal tea, no "natural" pain reliever, nothing bought from an online marketplace, nothing a relative brings over.
• Nobody shares. Not her prescription with the elder in the house, not the elder's supplement with her. Keep her bag labelled with her name only, out of reach of the children.
• A pause on something nobody prescribed is not a medication change. Anything she started on her own, from a recommendation rather than a prescription, you can simply stop buying and not restart until the team answers. Anything prescribed stays exactly as prescribed until the prescriber says otherwise.
• Painkillers are the one people forget. Ask the team which over-the-counter painkillers she may use before and after — that single question prevents a lot of last-minute problems.

One question that changes what I would tell you next: what are the exact names on the labels of what she has already started? Photograph every label and bring the photos — if any of them are in the list above, the timing of your call matters more.

(3) Red flags — when to stop DIY and get help

Call the surgical team's office, the pre-op nurse line, or her usual doctor today if:

• She has already started something and now bruises easily, bleeds from the gums, has blood in the stool, or vomits blood
• A new product gave her a rash, swelling, wheeze, or feeling faint
• She is more tired, dizzy, or confused than usual since starting it
• Anyone has given her someone else's medicine or doubled a dose "to make up for it"
• She develops a fever, spreading redness, or pus around the shoulder before the operation — infection before surgery delays surgery

Emergency — act on these now, not at the clinic appointment. Call your local emergency number now for trouble breathing, swelling of the face or throat, fainting, chest pain, or uncontrolled bleeding.

I cannot diagnose anything or change any medicine — that is the surgical team's job. My part is the family-care side: the kitchen, the routine, the list, and the message you send. And there is no coverage here for the contents of her own particular bottles or her surgeon's stop-list; only they can set those.

What success looks like in the next 24 hours

Not a cure, and not a promise about the operation — four plain things:

1. One bag with every bottle in it, packaging included, and a photo of each label.
2. One message sent to the surgeon's office today, with the five questions written down — screenshot-friendly, they answer it in a few lines.
3. Nothing new started, and nothing bought, between now and Tuesday.
4. Protein plus a vitamin-C food at two meals a day, using what you already have.

I have prepared the one-page form to hand in — fill it in and hand it over at the pre-op visit or read it out on the phone.

术前用药与补充剂清单-一页表-6ecc08f1.pdf