I recently went to two highly acclaimed neurosurgeons seeking advice on what to do about a fully herniated disc (that makes my leg not work 100% at the moment, super fun). The first told me he could get me into surgery the next day. I held off and got a second opinion almost 3 months later. The second told me to wait. Slowly, my leg is coming back. The first was going to permanently delete an entire joint in one of my vertebrae. The second suggested an alternative, less destructive approach if I ever got around to it. I'm safe on second base, and I think I'm going to just stand here for awhile and enjoy the game.
I've mentioned before that I have nerve damage in my fretting hand that has made my 4th and 5th fingers numb. In 2016, after I had heart surgery, they were numb when I woke up. The alarming thing wasn't the numbness, it was that after a few months, the fingers weakened to the point where they wouldn't function. I couldn't play any more. I figured I'd have to play slide.
So I consulted a physical medicine doctor, who sent me to get an MRI. The report that came back was that it was diabetic neuropathy. The physical medicine doc said, "I think they're wrong. I'm going to run some nerve conduction tests."
Turned out that I had a pinched ulnar nerve that was probably aggravated by the long heart procedure (septuple bypass).
He sent me to a hand surgeon who did more tests, agreed with my physical medicine doc, did an ulnar nerve transposition, and the fingers operate again, though they're still a bit numb. I can still play, I'm just slower due to numbness (the fingers sometimes don't know which string they've landed on), which is fine. I've always been a melodic player anyway.
Had my doctor simply accepted the findings of the MRI, I would have been in deep doo-doo. So yeah, second opinions are important.