Got some stories of your own. I live with a botched, sloppy hip replacement, now going on 9 yrs. Worst outcome I could have ever dreamed I'd end up with. Anterior Approach left me with: Femoral Nerve Damage IT Band Damage Shorter Leg And my knee issue that I've been dealing with for 27 yrs has me with a walker. I can't imagine cutting on my body again. OA hit my lower back when I was 18 and went on to have a busy, full, active life and then the hip replacement did me in.
@Joy Martin Your experiences give me pause to reconsider my own difficulties (no cutting, yet) and those of my nephews, both younger than, as well as my wife, now having hip pain. My wife's mother had a hip replacement, remained in extreme pain, careful X-ray analysis revealed the surgeon had cracked her femur. Opened it up, removed the prosthesis, closed and immobilized long enough to mend the femur, went back in, re-did the hip, turned out quite acceptably. 3 months later, the lady fell in her living room, breaking her other hip! Only lady I know who had 3 hip replacements! Frank
I was on so many replacement support groups post THR and some awful stories and some good ones, and for me I had 5 good post op months and then it all went downhill. A D.O. I see for bodywork and I saw him not long ago, made the comment that it may not have even been the hip that was the issue, but the back which I have a long history of arthritis. Modern medicine can do wonders but I so often go back to my parents' lives and their siblings and none had replacements and had their share of OA. Just listening to a gal's story on another group, she ran for many yrs on concrete and she's really messed up the knees. She is probably only in her 40's and faced with replacements. She keeps getting steroids and they are NOT the answer...make joints worse actually.
@Joy Martin My nephew, now 68, had spinal surgery about 3 years ago. They fused, added metallic parts and screws. Soon afterwards, he began having hip pain......he attributes it to the back surgery, though why I don't know.
I have friends who have had hip surgery, and the outcome seems to depend a lot on the surgeon and the facility in which it is performed. The initial surgery is the key. If that goes bad, you are trying to repair a poor job and that is much more difficult than doing it right the first time. I had a coworker who had his hip crushed on an ATV when he was 15 years old. He is in his late 40s now and has had 3 more hip replacements (that I know of) since then. The bone is so compromised that no one would touch him since the bone was so compromised. He was finally referred to a surgeon in Tampa, Florida, said to be the top hip surgeon in the U.S. if not the world. He had to live in Tampa for 6 or 7 weeks around the surgery, but he came out much better than he had been since his accident. I have another friend who had a replacement in his late 70's and has had it redone again but is still in severe pain and will probably will always be. I told him about the Tampa clinic, but I have no idea if he will look into it. Hip and leg pain can be attributable to back issues, @Frank Sanoica, as the lower body is supplied with nerves from the lower back...as least for the most part. I think I have shared some of the problems I had after my own back surgery, even though it was mostly successful. If you go to a chiropractor's office, most have charts showing what part of the spine supplies what area of the body. It can give you a clue as to where you pain may be originating. Also men and women are built differently, and women are much more likely to suffer from referred pain than men, making them more difficult to diagnose.
On the other side............ Here is a positive story about joint replacements.. I have had both hips replaced as well as both shoulders replaced.. That's 4 replacements... Today I am in as perfect shape as can be expected.. I live up north and I have a house with acreage that I work the land.. No problem, No pain, Very little restriction, and very little loss of strength..... Also I don't take any medication for the 4 replacements.. I can walk for about 30 minutes, go up stairs, climb a ladder, and do anything I have to do.. The only problem I have is walking in very rough terrain like the trails that go up a mountain, but I don't go there.. My orthopedic specialist is in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and wants to see me only every 2 years as a follow-up and every time I see him, everything is OK.. He takes X-Rays every 2 years.. My right hip was done in August of 2007 My left hip was done in December of 2009 My left shoulder was done in October of 2010 My right shoulder was done in June of 2017 In all the above, physiotherapy after was the main key to being as good as I am.. Extremely important ..... All those replacements were due to my hockey days back in the late 1950's.. I played semi-pro hockey in Quebec City and I was a very aggressive player.. Back then there weren't any of the protection we have today.. No helmets, shoulder pads, hip pads, elbow pads or any other form of protection at all.. We had chin pads. gloves, skates and a stick..... That's all.... The result was arthritis in those joints that were replaced.. In closing may I remind you that as of a few weeks from now, I will be 78 years old...
I have heard some good and some bad also, about joint replacements, and think that probably what @Don Alaska said about it depending on the surgeon , has a great deal to do with how it turns out. I had a friend in Idaho who had her hip joint replaced, and she was able to still go snowmobiling, hiking, kayaking, and other activities after the surgery, and she was vey happy with how it turned out. (She was in her early 80’s when she did this, besides) My son had back surgery, and he is really no better now than before he had the surgery, but now he also has had heart surgery, so they can’t operate on his back again at this point. I hurt my knee several times, two in vehicle accidents/wrecks, where they crashed into the dash of the car and mangled my knee, once in a bad fall from a horse when I was racing, and the horse slipped and fell; but the final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, was when I was in another horse-back riding accident, and completely shattered the leg. The surgeon did the best he could with what was left, but he said it was the worst break that he had seen outside of the military, and my leg is now much shorter, and put together crooked, so the poor knee gets even more stress on it. I don’t think that surgery could fix it, even if they could do that. What I try to do is to avoid inflammatory foods in my diet, since inflammation causes swelling and pain, and then I also do knee exercises in the water at the fitness center, and this seems to be the best help for it. I do have a knee brace that I sometimes wear, and that gives it extra support.
Had a right hip replacement in Oct 2005. Except for the rehab, which hurt like heck at times, the hip has been doing very well. Now that it's been 14 years, if I walk too much, I'll feel it in the hip. Not really, really bad, but it will hurt. It will be ibuprofen 800mg time! If we go somewhere where there is quite a bit of walking, like the Star Wars Celebration we went to in 2017, we have bought a nice wheelchair and take it with us. It worked out extremely well at that Celebration. Not related to this thread, but I've also had a rotator cuff surgery on each shoulder. The right shoulder, done in March 2006, the left one done in March 2015. Both due to a fall I took and completely, and partial, torn tendons. I now have daily "achy/nagging" pain in the left shoulder due to arthritis that sat in. Take a pain-reducing/killing med for that, daily. All three surgeries went very well, until that old ugly thing, called "arthritis" hit them.
So many end up with one after another back surgeries, one lead to another and another and it goes on and on, I've heard stories from some who had 7 and 9 back surgeries to supposedly "fix" what was screwed up with metal and bolts, etc.....Not for this gal. So many can benefit with lifelong PT. Cutting our bodies is not the answer, especially when we "Elect" to do so.....
One can have the best highly qualified surgeon and still come out messed up more. These MAJOR surgeries are huge traumas to the body for starters and then those who really have emergencies have not much choice, so need to go for them. Today so many are Elective and if you've never gone on groups to read other's stories you don't know too much and then there is the factor, if one has never done one, one never knows .. I went in with all good intentions, did not want to do the surgery, but talked to about 5 people who had good results so I did it. My only fix has been No Groin Pain but so many other complications from surgery...
These surgeries are primarily done due to Arthritic conditions but then after the surgeries more arthritis sets in, this is what one surgeon talks about on his local call in radio program here in L.A.
I work with a lot of arthritic supplements and use ibuprofen and some tylenol and topical ointments, my life has changed so dramatically since hip replacement and of course I have no idea how I would be if I had NOT done it. Maybe better off, don't know. But I know what's been done, can't be undone. I also go to a D.O. for some of his bodywork to release tight muscles and all that's messed up in this 80 yr body.
I just spoke with a friend who underwent PRP (Platelet rich Plasma) treatments and they changed his life without surgery. He is in construction and had damaged knees and shoulders. The PRP treatment uses your own cells to repair joints, and this man claims even his MRIs have changed dramatically. He is only in his early 60s though.
Boy, that's good to hear. PRP and regular Prolo can work and for some it does not. I have regular Prolotherapy (dextrose) for my shoulder 10 yrs ago and it was heaven to be out of pain for 3 yrs. PRP uses your blood's platlets to regenerate tissue and hopefully keep one out of the surgeon's hands. Stem Cells, I'm just not hearing enough good results for this very pricey work. Twice the price for PRP.