Not feeling ready for surgery at all

[imgetinold]

I constantly find myself in the same situation.  I am scheduled for surgery with Dr. Gross in January.  Last week I could barely walk, and had to sit down for a few  minutes just to get down the isle in the supermarket.  It got better a bit each day, and I was able to hike with only minor discomfort on Saturday about 4 miles.  Today, I have very little pain.

I keep contemplating putting it off as well, but I have adopted a strategy to keep me focused.  When my hip doesn't hurt, I work out as I would want to if there were no problems.  Each time I do, I am reminded for the next 4-7 days why I'm moving forward.  I can be pain free if I am sedentary.....but being sedentary is about the worst thing I can think of.  I am married to....and have been competitive with....an uber-fit wife.  It kills me to not be able to participate with her in the ways I always have.

So, even though I have good days/weeks, they are only following periods of sedentarianism (trademarking that word.....$0.25 per use).

I totally understand how you feel, though.  Good luck.

[Dan L]

Mountaingoat;

I can empathize with the "no pain now so why schedule operation" quagmire.

I had an intra-articular injection in my right hip around 9/1/11, 4 weeks before the left one was resurfaced in early October, and I am now about 3 months out from that injection (and 8 weeks from resurfacing) with some increasing symptoms in the "good" hip.  Throughout the initial recovery from the surgery, (first 4 weeks) I was certain I would wait a year before doing the other surgery (it is no walk in the park to recover from this), after all the good one did not hurt, even with the extra load of hauling around my repaired hip and crutches etc.  In the last 2 weeks I have completely flipped on that, thinking it needs to be done as soon as I can, despite the current lack of symptoms.  The almost instant relief from the OA bone on bone pain that many report here was absolutely true in my case. Poof.

I know it is not going to get better, even though it has been quiet these past 3 months, based on what occurred earlier.  Backtracking a bit, about 4 months out from a prior bi-lat injections in the spring of 2011, all of the nasty symptoms came back in the good hip (the injections never helped the worse hip at all), which is starting to happen again now.  I could not face the surgery with no good hip to sleep on so I band-aided the "good" hip to get through the surgery.

For me, the roller coaster is the thing I'm looking to avoid by getting it done as soon as practical, with the knowledge now that the surgery is seemingly very successful, and some symptoms are gone day 1.

As others have stated here you have to be 1000% comfortable with the decision to have surgery.  You have to also be realistic about whether or not the temporary change in symptoms is enough to tide you over to wait on the ultimate goal of ongoing relief.  Once I was clear that the inevitable is, well, inevitable, I'm focused on the shortest time to get off the end stage (12 months from the last surgery) restrictions so I can resume hiking etc, and for me that means getting the surgery as soon as I can.

BTW I cannot imagine getting both at the same time; I know others have done that, and I take my hat off to them.  I'm a 50 yo male, in the best shape I've been in since I was 19 (dropped 25 lbs to prepare for this surgery) I had to use my good leg to get my operated leg into bed, onto the commode, into a chair/car, etc, etc.

Hope it helps

Dan

[manyworries]

I can't believe how active so many of you are prior to your surgery?!!  You all amaze me.  I thought I was one tough cookie, but I couldn't run 100 feet if someone was chasing me with a hatchet, LOL !! 

Do any of you have other conditions too?  Maybe I am so miserable due to my worn out L4/L5??   So happy that many of you still have some quaility of life !!

[curt]

       I too was crippled...bad knees, achilles, calf and hip.  The only bright side was that the hip and spasms were so bad I couldn't register the other aches and pains.  The speed of my decline was such that if a HR was not feasible or available, I would have gotten the total hip done in order to stop the pain.  I don't recommend to anyone that they wait until it gets that bad, but I'm not sure I would have been doing it at all if I was able to be even moderately active.
     Now that I'm "fixed" its amazing how good "good" can feel.  If the writing is on the wall and the OA is advanced, I would think about getting it done before you are against the pain wall and out of options.  The inability to walk, sleep, work etc. is not worth the wait, in my opinion.  In my case only, it would have been awesome to have it done about 6 months earlier than I did, but boy do I appreciate it now.
     Best of luck with your decisions.  Curt

[Tin Soldier]

Sorry to be so financial here, but I actually decided to get no.2 done within the same plan year so as to only have one deductible (surgeries were about 6 months apart)  That might help one with their decision.  Especially when neither will be getting any better.  No. 2 was not super bad, or at least I didn't think so at the time.  I look back now and realize I had a lot of nerve pain in both legs that made me constantly trying to stretch and readjust during the day, standing, sitting, and also in bed.  Pretty much constant. 

[mountaingoat]

It really is funny how quickly the body forgets pain once we are out of it. I was thinking back to a trip I took in late September before I had the Synvisc injections and just carrying my luggage through the airport was painful. I remember that I almost cancelled the trip. It is that reason that I am absolutely going through with resurfacing on my right hip at least and probably bilateral...even if I am not in bad pain now I refuse to go one more season of my life wondering what trips I will  need to cancel because of my hip. I know it needs to get done in the next 6 months...whether its January or April doesn't make too much of a difference. In some respects, maybe it is better to do it before the injection wears out again because I can at least work out and stay in shape at the moment.

[ctb]

I was reading through this thread and I was thinking the same thing - it really is amazing how fast you forget the pain.  I had two injections a couple months apart.  Almost immediately after both I could walk without limping.  However, both times the relief was very short lived.  I was hoping for pain relief for at least 6 months, but only got a month or so.  Maybe it is because of the labral tear, I don't know.  If it were me, I'd do it in a minute, but then again, I have constant pain right now, so I'm motivated.  The biggest question for me would be bilat vs single. I was thinking bilat, but Dr. Gross said he didn't think my right needed it now.  There is no pain yet, so I'm going to wait.  Good luck either way you decide to go!