I’m a 39 year old father of two, and have had arthritis in my right hip for about 5 years. I currently have two bone spurs on my femur (right where the ball forms) and little cartilage left in the bottom of the pelvic notch. when I was 17, I had hip surgery to remove a cyst that had formed inside the head of my right femur. The Doctor had told me that I would eventually develop arthritis in that hip – it was only a matter of time (and I got 20+ years out of it, and that’s not bad). My wife is looking forward to me being able to go for walks with her again, and my 10 year old is excited that I may finally be able to keep up with him again.

Big thanks to Pat for running this site. Lots of helpful information here, and lots of encouraging news from those who have gone before.

October 28, 2010 I had a right BHR performed by Dr. Klug on 9/21, and things have gone pretty smoothly, although I’m amazed at how quickly some of you have recovered…

The surgery went fine – the surgeon found that the outside of my femoral head was dead, chalky bone, but once he started chipping it away, he found healthy bone. So I avoided my greatest concern – a total hip replacement. I spent 3 days in the hospital (Kaiser Roseville), and that was a mixed experience, but it was positive overall. Came home the Friday after my surgery, and it’s been a little better every day since then.

Spent a week or so on a walker, and then moved to crutches. Another week, down to one crutch. I’ve been on a cane for 2 weeks now, and am spending more and more time without it. Spent the first 4 weeks in a hospital bed in the den, which allowed my wife to get some rest, and allowed me to be a lot more comfortable than in my regular bed (I HIGHLY recommend it if your plan covers it, or if you can afford it).

One thing my Dr did not do is prescribe any PT (he told me that most of his patients do fine without it – the functionality comes back naturally). The last time I saw the surgeon was the day after my surgery, and I won’t see him again until my first follow-up appointment on Nov. 9th. Part of it is because I live a fair distance away, and we’ve traded emails back and forth, but it seemed odd to have little to no face-to-face time with the surgeon.

I’m glad I did it – I’m far from 100%, but the hip pain is gone, and the muscle pain in my thigh is getting less every day. I’m looking forward to being able to play with my 10 year old again.

December 1, 2010 I’m now 9 weeks post-op and am also having knee issues, more than likely, as others have said, due to compensating on a bad hip for so long. Mine was internal pain, not like a bruising or anything external, but like my knee is out of alignment. I went to the drug store and purchased a knee brace (the neoprene type – cost under $20) to wear during the day, and the situation has improved dramatically over the last week. January 27, 2011 I’m now nearly 4 months post-op, and feeling good. My initial wait to speak to Dr Klug was about 2 months, and I had my appointment rescheduled once as well (turns out that Dr. Klug had opened up another half-day on his schedule, so my appointment was pushed out to accommodate that). After that, I was lucky enough to speak to his surgical scheduler on the same day that the OR opened up a bunch of new spots for his patients. My wait time between initial consultation and surgery was about one month (his average wait time is quite a bit longer).

Dr Klug is very relaxed and confident, but not so much that he thinks he walks on water. He’ll answer your questions, listen to your concerns, and give you his opinion. Unlike other aspects of Kaiser, where it can feel like they take a get-you-in-get-you-out approach, he’ll take as long as he needs to to make sure that you’re comfortable with what’s going on. He will also spend time answering your emails when you have questions. He’s young, too. For someone with such a great reputation, it’s shocking to finally meet him and realize how young he is (even for me – I have yet to turn 40… . At the point when I had my surgery, he was close to 500 resurfacings.

When Klug looked at my x-rays, we discussed that there was not a significant change from the previous set of x-rays, but there were still things that were of enough concern to him that he recommended the resurfacing. He could see that much of my cartilage on one side of the hip socket was gone, I had bone spurs on both the top and bottom of the femoral head, and there were potential signs of avascular necrosis (and it turns out that I did have AN, which had to be cleaned out).

Overall, we (my wife and I) were very happy with the overall experience – both with Dr. Klug, and with Kaiser Perm. in general. I had my surgery on Tuesday night (Dr. Klug works LONG hours), and went home on Friday afternoon. There was a little glitch with room availability that was pretty annoying (they were really crowded when I had my surgery, and had to wait around 24 hours before I made it to my room – I was in some sort of transitional room with a bunch of other people…). If I had to go through this again, I wouldn’t hesitate to work with Dr. Klug.

March 29, 2011 I’m a little over 6 months post op (BHR, right hip, 9/21/10), and things are going along alright. I never had any PT post-op (Dr Klug doesn’t typically assign PT), and I haven’t really felt like it was necessary.

I live in Northern California, in an area which receives snow – and this year, we’ve been slammed with it. Over the last couple months, I’ve spent a significant amount of time shoveling the stuff or running the snow blower, which has taken a toll on my leg – no excruciating pain or anything, but the joint will ache for a day or so and then return to normal.

I’m more concerned about the numbness/soreness of my quad. I know that the numbness could last for the rest of my life, but it seems like after exertion above and beyond normal, day-to-day activity, my quad has a weird combination of numbness and pain. Is this “normal”? On the surface, it feels like nerve pain, but if I rub my quad, the muscle is very sore. This takes a lot longer to recede.

I’m thinking that this is probably normal after a HR, I was told the full recovery period would be between 6-12 months, and I’m just outside 6.