NY Times article...

[Tin Soldier]

I'll add a little more to Vicky's posts.

Mr. Cartier said, adding that he learned of Dr. Kwon while researching metal hip problems on the Internet

How hard can it be to find Hip Talk and Surfacehippy and read a little to find out who the number one surgeons are?, it's not hard, its rather easy.

Food and Drug Administration received more than 5,000 reports about problems with the all-metal hips,
If you divide that by 500,000 (presented earlier in the article) you get about 1%, which is less than the 2% to 4% that we see in the papers written by the experienced suregons.  1% is pretty good.  Sure that's only for the 7 maybe 10 yrs that this has been tracked, but it's not that alarming.

he took the trip to Boston to see Dr. Kwon. In 2007, from Manchester NH? (presented earlier in the article in reference to the patient)  What is that like 50 miles?  If you want it done right you should expect to potentially travel to places like Belgium, New York, South Carolina, India, Birmingham UK, Seattle, LA, Boulder,...

which was made by Stryker  I didn't know Stryker made an HR device.

“He was the trouble guy,” Mr. Cartier said. “He deals with the cases that other people couldn’t figure out.”
I think Dr. Gross is the trouble guy, maybe Su, De Smet, Pritchett,... I've never heard of Kwon until this article.

learned last year that the model of artificial hip she got in 2007 was being recalled by its manufacturer, the DePuy division of Johnson & Johnson, because of its high early failure rate.   I think it's a little unfair to include the ASR recall model in with the other models where metallosis has been attributed to poor placement, not device design.

Tissue damage is also occurring in some patients with low or normal metal blood levels and in some patients who are free of symptoms.   I haven't seen any papers suggesting this.  Actually it sounds like it's the other way around.  Pain and discomfort presents first and then you see elevated metals.  If caught early, because of obvious pain and discomfort with subsequent metals analysis, revisions have been succesful. 

“He told me, ‘I can’t guarantee that you are going to be one of those guys who come out as well as you went in,’ ” he said.   What are you talking about?  None of us went in well, we were in pain and our ROM sucked, we tripped on sidewalks, couldn't sleep, took narcotics, barked at our families,.... OK, go ahead, if you really want to, you can lop off my femur and throw a THR are in there, I really don't care, I just want to get my life back. 

[JMS]

Tissue damage is also occurring in some patients with low or normal metal blood levels and in some patients who are free of symptoms.   I haven't seen any papers suggesting this.  Actually it sounds like it's the other way around.  Pain and discomfort presents first and then you see elevated metals.  If caught early, because of obvious pain and discomfort with subsequent metals analysis, revisions have been succesful. 

I have to pick up on this claim Tin. I had no pain or discomfort but my metal levels were sky high and increasing rapidly. Not only was there tissue damage but a range of other serious side effects.
And while I am at it, I know everyone wants to be reassured by saying that it is only the badly placed components that have problems, but again that simply was not true for me.  My inclination angle was 40 degrees.

[cwg]

Hey JMS- Oye, I appreciate you here. Very much.
My levels are high, not as high as yours, only ten times. Yours were much higher.
My xray seems to look like it is in place (original records are still in Hong Kong, where I lived for 18 years)
My pain is not only in the hip, it is random. So, not specific.

The one thing that is with me, on and off, but frequent enough, is I feel unwell. Bit nauseous, wobbly, and lately, a weird taste in my mouth and a furry/rough feeling on the back of my tongue.
And a dry mouth, especially during the night, probably from my new sleep apnea symptoms, the last couple of years.

Did you feel unwell? The other nonsense is probably unrelated (taste, tongue apnea etc)

Have to add, my life is very very good otherwise

Thanks for your input here!

[Tin Soldier]

JMS - good point about your situation.  I was slightly inflammed about the article and so my scale was tipped the opposite direction of the journalist.  Obviously journalism these days tend to be on the dramatic side.  I guess with that particular comment about the tissue, it makes it sound like all of us with no pain, no discomfort, no signs of metallosis have sleeping dragons within our hips and we'll all be looking at major tissue necrosis, chronic heavy metal toxicity throughout our bodies, and a difficult revison to THR sometime on our future.  The papers and the experienced surgeons are not saying that.  They are saying after 7 to 10 years of data, 2% to 4% have metallosis and they also say that metallosis, if it is going to show up, generally shows up on the early side of that 7 to 10 year period.

[JMS]

Hi Tin,
I know where you are coming from re the journalistic scare techniques.  And to be fair, I should point out that I was not totally asymptomatic.  It's true that I was free of any pain and discomfort, but I was clunking constantly. That's what eventually triggered the metal testing.  So, no, people who are truly asymptomatic don't need to fear the sleeping dragon, I don't think.

[cwg]

Argh, I said I'd only sit back and read... but I clunk all the time!
Audibly, to others close enough... (trainers PT etc)

anyway

[JMS]

Is the clunking increasing?