Does Surgery Make You Collapse? Doctor Warns: These 5 Diseases Don’t Need Surgery—Don’t Let Ignorance Harm You. Li, a 68-year-old woman, had always been relatively healthy. During a routine check-up last year, doctors found a small benign polyp in her stomach. The doctor suggested removal, and her family thought, “Since it’s surgery, one cut and you’ll be completely safe.” They urged her to undergo the operation quickly. The surgery itself went smoothly, but the real challenge came afterward: For months, Li lost her appetite, suffered from sleep disturbances, became short of breath with even mild activity, and lost over ten pounds. She became noticeably weaker. This is not an isolated case. Research shows that elderly patients have a far higher risk of postoperative complications than younger ones. Even “minor” surgeries can cause slow recovery or long-term decline because of trauma, anesthesia, or infection. In clinical medicine, this is called postoperative frailty syndrome. Problems that could have been managed by follow-up and observation may, if treated too aggressively with surgery, leave the patient drained of vitality. So people began to ask: Does surgery really make people collapse?