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I’ve reached the stage in life where I and many of my friends are no longer self-conscious about having an “organ recital” when we get together: you know, a conversation where we eagerly recount our latest physical ailments and medical issues.

It’s not my intention to bore you with one right now (at least not in all its gory detail), but I want to share a few things I’ve learned from experience about coping with medical issues. If you have already come to these conclusions on your own, you can just nod along as I go (and share your story with us afterwards).

Go to medical professionals for diagnosis and treatment. But there may be side issues that call for other approaches.

I was in my early 30s, without any symptoms, when my ophthalmologist discovered my left retina was becoming detached. He was an excellent specialist who not only correctly diagnosed my condition but performed the successful operation and follow-up laser treatments, saving my sight.

But post-surgery, I was told to sleep sitting up for a week, and I awoke with terrible back spasms. The first doctor I called prescribed muscle relaxants, which only made me drowsy and loopy while doing nothing to reduce the pain.

When my wife’s cousin — a practitioner of an acupressure-like healing technique called Jin Shin Jyutsu — heard about my condition, she came right over and offered to help.

She pressed on various spots of my body that would seem to have nothing to do with my back, and after an hour, the spasms relaxed immediately and permanently. A former skeptic about alternative treatments, I became a believer in that one!

If your first diagnosis and treatment go nowhere, it’s probably time for a second opinion.

A few years ago, I started experiencing sciatica — shooting pains down my leg from the hip. I was referred to an orthopedist, who ordered an MRI.

The radiologist who read the MRI noticed nothing out of the ordinary for someone my age, so my doctor said a few weeks of physical therapy ought to fix me up.

That actually made things worse. So bad, in fact, that the PT sent me to a pain specialist who, after prescribing pain meds that didn’t stop the pain (but led to swelling in my legs), recommended a cortisone injection. That only magnified the pain!

Finally, I got a referral from several friends to a particular doctor, who took one look at the original MRI and immediately pointed out that a cyst on my spine was most likely the problem. No one before him had ever noticed or mentioned that before.

I now believe I would have avoided weeks of agony and unnecessary (indeed, counterproductive) treatment if I had made more of an effort to find a truly experienced doctor with a good reputation in the first place.

Sometimes it’s the simple, low-tech solution that solves your problem.

After a vacation where I walked miles every day carrying a rather heavy backpack, I developed a painful case of plantar fasciitis in my right foot.

I told my troubles to a retired podiatrist friend, who offered to take a look. After a brief evaluation, in which he uncovered some other sensitivities in my knee and hip, he said it was highly likely that my problem was due to having legs of slightly different length (which, apparently, is rather common).

He inserted a small pad in my left shoe to even out my stance, and the pain and sensitivities went away. I now keep the pads in all my shoes and haven’t had a problem with my foot (or a twinge in my hip) since.

My friend, it turns out, had written a book about these problems intended both for medical professionals as well as lay people. Unfortunately, it didn’t exactly take the world by storm.

Perhaps this and other solutions proposed in his book were too low-tech and inexpensive to make them worth adopting widely in our current healthcare system.

Don’t dismiss placebos, but don’t use unnecessary meds as one.

Sometimes when I tell my Jin Shin Jyutsu story, people say dismissively, “Oh, that was just the placebo effect.” I like to respond that placebos are nothing to sneeze at.

Even if what gets you the relief is a placebo, that doesn’t mean it didn’t work. The “effect” of the placebo was to solve the problem, so that means it was effective!

On the other hand, doctors often complain that patients won’t leave their office without a prescription, even when the condition is likely to resolve without one.

I suggest you tell your doctors that you will take whatever medicine is truly necessary, but you don’t want to take a drug just for its psychological value.

For such situations, there ought to be a prescription pad that says, “Take two chocolates and call me in the morning.”

For those wanting more info about Jin Shin Jyutsu, read The Touch of Healing. For Dr. Stuart Goldman’s book, visit walkingwellagain.com. Both books are available on Amazon.