Hip Replacement Experience?

[grumpy]

DW is scheduled for double hip replacement surgery in late January. Up until last spring she had not experienced any problems. Then while doing alot of walking on a tour of Europe she started having severe left hip pain. X-rays showed that the joint was bone-on-bone. At that time her right hip was not giving her pain but X-rays showed early stages of degeneration. Since then the right hip has rapidly worsened and recent X-rays show that it is also bone-on-bone. The doctors are still trying to sort out the underlying cause but in any case, the only treatment is total hip replacement.

Fortunately her surgeon at the Anderson Clinic in Mount Vernon, Va. uses the anterior rather than the posterior approach to the surgery, which makes it pretty straight forward to do both hips at the same time. She is in, otherwise, good health. The doctor told her that doing both hips at once does increase some of the surgical risks (bleeding, infection) but that he does approx. 20 double replacements a year and has had good results with few complications.

We are both apprehensive about the difficulty of the recovery process she will face and how long it may take her to resume normal activity.

Anyone here been through hip replacement? Any advice, insight would be appreciated.

 

[73ss454]

Grumpy, I don't know anything about it but wish you guys the best and a quick recovery.

 

[pb4uski]

BIL had one hip replaced a few weeks ago. Things went smoothly and all is going well. He was walking with a cane soon after the surgery and driving again in a couple weeks or so. He's only 51 or so though.

 

[Mulligan]

My uncle and father have had hip replacements ( not double ones though). My Uncle has had hips, knees, and ankles (I had not heard of ankle replacement) replaced and has praised the results in all. My father is still having problems. It first " went out of place", doctor said he had never had that happen to him before. Then he had to have another surgery on it because the pain hadnt subsided (6 months later). Now three months later, it still isnt right. Hip surgeon said the pain was in his back not the hip. He then last month went to a back doctor, and he said the pain was in his hip not back. So he is back to square one and going to a different hip specialist in January for another opinion. Hopefully this will help as he now has to use a cane, when prior to the original surgery, he needed no cane, but it was just pain level. My dad is in his 70's. I had a friend in his 50's have one replaced two years ago, and bounced back within weeks. He golfs all the time and is glad he had it. I hope I never need one, but like my tooth I ignored even though it hurt, eventually the pain will make the decision for you. Best of luck!

 

[Amethyst]

I wish your wife the very best. What an awful surprise, and how amazing that things could get so dire without any symptoms. Let us know how it goes, OK?

Amethyst

=grumpy;1141507]DW is scheduled for double hip replacement surgery in late January. Up until last spring she had not experienced any problems. Then while doing alot of walking on a tour of Europe she started having severe left hip pain. X-rays showed that the joint was bone-on-bone. [/QUOTE]

 

[haha]

My dance partner had her R hip replaced at about age 60. She had an old fracture through the pelvis and bone on the same side, 30 years ago. SHe also went from no sumptoms to a lot of pain pretty quicky. She does not tolerate pain well, and she doies not like the look of a cane so she got surgery. She is a dynamao at rehab and really threw herself into it, and has an excellent result. Her surgeon told her to stay out of the mountains, and gave her fairly strict limits on how much she can carry.

Funny, but at the same time her R hip sx started, my L hip started hurting, also at the site of an earlier fracture. X Ray said mild to moderate osteo. My dancing might be a bit better with a replacement, but I can walk fairly long distances and rarely hurt enough for me to consider meds for the pain. And my major exercise, rowing, is not bothered by it at all as long as I keep my form. So I think I will wait. If I get really sore a day with a cane and ice when I get home usually puts it back to normal.

I hope Mrs. Grumpy has excellent results. I think most often hips do turn out well

Ha

 

[SarahW]

Good luck to Mrs. Grumpy! My MIL had a hip replaced last year at age 74. Her recovery was fairly easy, though the physical therapy was somewhat uncomfortable at times. I remember that she was not allowed to bend over to pick things up for a long time. (She had one of those mechanical things to allow her to retrieve items that fell on the floor.)

She has done very well and says that the pain relief made the surgery one of the best choices she ever made.

 

[Purron]

DW is scheduled for double hip replacement surgery in late January. Up until last spring she had not experienced any problems. Then while doing alot of walking on a tour of Europe she started having severe left hip pain. X-rays showed that the joint was bone-on-bone. At that time her right hip was not giving her pain but X-rays showed early stages of degeneration. Since then the right hip has rapidly worsened and recent X-rays show that it is also bone-on-bone. The doctors are still trying to sort out the underlying cause but in any case, the only treatment is total hip replacement.

Fortunately her surgeon at the Anderson Clinic in Mount Vernon, Va. uses the anterior rather than the posterior approach to the surgery, which makes it pretty straight forward to do both hips at the same time. She is in, otherwise, good health. The doctor told her that doing both hips at once does increase some of the surgical risks (bleeding, infection) but that he does approx. 20 double replacements a year and has had good results with few complications.

We are both apprehensive about the difficulty of the recovery process she will face and how long it may take her to resume normal activity.

Anyone here been through hip replacement? Any advice, insight would be appreciated.

Grumpy,

My mother had a hip replacement at the Anderson Clinic in Mount Vernon 5 years ago with excellent results. I arranged to take 6 weeks off from work to assist her but she was up and around within a week. Wishing the best for your wife and looking forward to hearing your experience since mom might need the other hip done in a year or so.

 

[jdmorton]

Had My Right Hip Replaced 4 Years Ago

Grumpy,

Good luck to your wife. Here is a thread I started after I had my hip replaced back in 2007: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f38/hip-replaced-31370.html. It is still the best think I've done healthwise in quite some time.

 

[Moemg]

Sorry to hear about your wife . My Mom had her hips replaced in her late 80's one at a time . She had a lot of pain before the procedures but was pain free after . The rehab really was not bad . It's easier for total hips then knees .

 

[FIREd]

My dad had both hips replaced a few years ago. The surgery substantially improved his quality of life.

 

[JOHNNIE36]

grumpy, best wishes to your wife on her upcoming surgery. I just know my BIL had that surgery last year and he recovered from it nicely. He told me it wasn't too bad relative to the physical therapy and the rehab time wasn't too long. 90 days and he was playing golf. I've got a knee replacement coming up again. Had the right knee done three years ago and now the left if giving me fits. It's bone on bone and all due to arthritis. Think I'll wait and do the recovery in the summer when it's too hot to play golf. I know knee replacement is a lot harder than hip replacement.

 

[Bestwifeever]

My MIL actually had three hips replaced (a replacement of a 20-year replacement on one side) and all were successful. The first time she had both done at the same time, and she was very very diligent in doing the physical therapy, including her PT homework. Good luck to Mrs. Grumpy!

 

[Silver]

I had a right total hip replacement in 2003 when I was 52 yrs due to osteoarthritis. I did a lot a research on the type of implant I wanted because I was so young and was looking for something that would last as long as possible. I chose a metal-on-metal implant, and found an ortho surgeon at Tampa General Hospital that only used metal-on-metal because of their longevity. The surgeon used a lateral approach because he believed there were fewer dislocations post-op.

The surgical techniques and implants have gotten better in the past 8 years since I had my surgery. You may want to ask what implant the surgeon plans to use and why.....and do some online research to see what you find.

This website is a great resource for info and networking with others who are needing hip replacements. FWIW. Welcome

My recovery was fine....absolutely no pain now....and I am hoping to never need a revision.

 

[friar1610]

My dance partner had her R hip replaced at about age 60. She had an old fracture through the pelvis and bone on the same side, 30 years ago. SHe also went from no sumptoms to a lot of pain pretty quicky. She does not tolerate pain well, and she doies not like the look of a cane so she got surgery. She is a dynamao at rehab and really threw herself into it, and has an excellent result. Her surgeon told her to stay out of the mountains, and gave her fairly strict limits on how much she can carry.

Funny, but at the same time her R hip sx started, my L hip started hurting, also at the site of an earlier fracture. X Ray said mild to moderate osteo. My dancing might be a bit better with a replacement, but I can walk fairly long distances and rarely hurt enough for me to consider meds for the pain. And my major exercise, rowing, is not bothered by it at all as long as I keep my form. So I think I will wait. If I get really sore a day with a cane and ice when I get home usually puts it back to normal.

I hope Mrs. Grumpy has excellent results. I think most often hips do turn out well

Ha

My understanding is that rehab/physical therapy is absolutely key to the recovery process. I base this on two observations:
- my daughter has had both hips replaced due to a rare disease and is doing very well now. But the rehab was long and hard.
- I used to work out at a PT clinic that also had a fitness program. I watched a lot of the hip replacement people doing exercises and chatted a few times with the guy who ran the place generally about the rehab. He confirmed that if you don't take the rehab very seriously you can be in big trouble.

Haven't personally experienced this and hope I won't have to but, if I do, I hope I can throw myself into it like your dance partner.

 

[Nuiloa]

My uncle had hips replaced (3 times on one side, 4 on the other), over a period of 30 years.

Except for the second to last one, things went very well. He was up, riding his bike and doing long-distance swimming within a very short period.

His second to last surgery went badly - no doubt because the surgeon was having lung cancer surgery the next day and was not focused. However, they eventually fixed the problem - and his hip was fine from then on.

 

[Leon44]

You may want to look into a hip resurfacing as well. My right hip was bone to bone as well and I elected the hip resurfacing over the total hip replacement. Not everyone is a canidate. You must have good bone. I'm going on 7 years now and feel great. If you haven't researched it the claimed upsides are it saves bone and it alleviates some of the worry about revisions. The downside is that it is not widely done in the US. In fact it just received FDA approval a year or two ago. Widely done in other countries.

Either way I'm sure she'll be fine. I would do it again in a heartbeat to get rid of all the pain! The surgery methods are less evasive then they use to be and the success rates are high. Good Luck!

 

[omni550]

I sincerely hope that your wife's surgery goes well.


I was reading the NYT this morning and ran across this article which is a bit unsettling http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/h...implants-not-better-study-finds.html?src=recg

"The Australian study showed that not a single new artificial hip or knee introduced over a recent five-year period was any more durable than older ones. In fact, 30 percent of them fared worse.

The Australian study concluded that both patients and taxpayer-financed health care programs were paying a high cost because surgeons were using newly designed implants, introduced with little test data, over existing designs that had track records."


omni

 

[grumpy]

I sincerely hope that your wife's surgery goes well.


I was reading the NYT this morning and ran across this article which is a bit unsettling http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/h...implants-not-better-study-finds.html?src=recg

"The Australian study showed that not a single new artificial hip or knee introduced over a recent five-year period was any more durable than older ones. In fact, 30 percent of them fared worse.

The Australian study concluded that both patients and taxpayer-financed health care programs were paying a high cost because surgeons were using newly designed implants, introduced with little test data, over existing designs that had track records."


omni

Yep, one of the first things we asked the surgeon was which device he would use. He said that the device he uses has been around for 20 years and has a very good performance record. He actually said "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Meaning that a proven technology is preferable to a "new and (supposedly) improved one.

 

[grumpy]

So DW had her bilateral hip replacement surgery yesterday. Everything went well with the procedures and she was back in the recovery room after 3 hours. Her BP was low (it always is low but not THAT low) following the surgery so they kept her in recovery a bit longer than usual. By 6:20 pm she was in her room and by 7:00 was eating a full dinner and by 8:00 was watching TV. She was on pain meds and seemed pretty comfortable.

She will have two sessions of physical therapy this morning and will stay in the hospital one or two more nights depending on how the PT goes.

I'm off to the hospital to attend the PT so I will know what she is supposed to do when she gets home.

 

[haha]

Glad to hear that things are going well.

Ha

 

[grumpy]

Final Report:

DW had her follow-up (five weeks since surgery) visit with the surgeon today. She walked into his office without a cane and is off all pain medicine. She was cleared to drive and resume any activities she wants. The Dr. said she does not need out-patient physical therapy, just to do the exercises he gave her at home. We have been doing short walks outside each day and gradually increasing the distance.

All in all an amazing outcome and an impressive recovery. Based on our experience - anyone needing hip replacement should not hesitate to get it done.

 

[Amethyst]

Wow! Am so glad she had a good outcome.

Amethyst

Final Report:

DW had her follow-up (five weeks since surgery) visit with the surgeon today. She walked into his office without a cane and is off all pain medicine.

 

[JOHNNIE36]

grumpy, happy for your wife's great recovery. Sounds like she had a very successful operation. I was surprised by your earlier post where you said the operation only took three hours. Unless there were two surgery teams. Just can't imagine having both hiips done in that short period of time.

 

[grumpy]

grumpy, happy for your wife's great recovery. Sounds like she had a very successful operation. I was surprised by your earlier post where you said the operation only took three hours. Unless there were two surgery teams. Just can't imagine having both hiips done in that short period of time.

Jonnie,

The doctor who did DW's surgery does something like 250 of these a year. He told us that it typically takes him just over an hour to do one hip replacement. He uses an anterior approach, which is relatively new and requires much less disruption of muscles and other structures.

The doctor had provided DW with contact information for previous bilateral patients. When DW spoke to one of them he told her "Dr. Hamilton is a rock-star." Now we definitely agree.