What are the symptoms of a femur neck crack or slipped cup?

[tcm145]

     I had my left hip resurfaced 42 weeks ago, and my right hip resurfaced 24 weeks ago.  I am still experiencing clunks and thunks in both; and have tendonitis in my hip flexor area on the right side.  The right side also seems to "limp" every now and then because of lingering muscle weekness.  I am a little paranoid, so I was wondering if there are specific symptoms of a femur neck crack and/or slipped acetabular cup.
     Thanks so much for all your input!
      Troy

[Pat Walter]

Hi Troy

I have not had a slipped cup or femur neck fracture, but have read the emails from people that experienced both problems.  The major indication of both is REALLLY TERRIBLE PAIN - not a little hurting here and there or throbbing or on and off pain - but down and out, crying out loud - 10 on a one to ten scale of HURT.

They can't hardly walk or move without terrible pain.  If you had either you probably won't even want to be sitting at your computer talking about it.  You would be on the phone to your doctor right now.

There are a number of stories about slipped cups lately on the Yahoo Surface Hippy Discussion Group.  These people are in terrible pain and have surgery to replace the cups or get revised to a thr.  There have been about 10 slipped cups in the last year from various doctors. 

I just posted an article written for my website by Dr. Bose about slipped cups  http://www.surfacehippy.info/loosecups.php  We have asked the experienced doctors why it happens and they have all basically said the same thing:  It is surgeon error.  The surgeon has not placed the cup properly.

That is why you hear us constantly telling new people to use doctors with a great deal of experience.  It is a terrible problem to have a slipped cup and it means you are back in surgery getting opened up again to have the cup replaced.

Femur neck fractures are also doctor error and there is no solution to a femur neck crack but to revise to a THR.  There have been several hairline fractures of the femur where the surgeons have kept the person non-weight bearing for a long period of time and it has healed.  But that is very unusual.

Take it easy and just relax - I had lots of clunks and still get a little occassionaly 18 months post op.  I also have bursitis in my hips which cause some pain.

It take a good year to heal and actually doctors have said it really takes 2 years to heal everything inside.

Pat

[tcm145]

Pat,
     Thank you so much for such an informative reply!  You have definitely put my mind at ease!
      Take care,
       Troy

[Pat Walter]

You are welcome.  It is natural to worry a lot when you have had a hip resurfacing.  Just take it easy and if you have any questions be sure to ask here.  If they are serious problems - be sure to call your doctors office.  That is there job to answer questions so you don't have to worry.

Keep in touch.

Pat

[nicole]

Hi,
I am glad to read your discussion about femur neck fractures etc.. I am a little over three weeks post op and I got a little too overzealous on the eliptical glider and have been in a lot of pain. I scoured the web for days looking for symptoms of femur neck fracture.  I finally called my surgeon in Seattle and he had me go in for an x ray this morning.  I have not heard back yet, but I am crossing my fingers it is not a fracture.  My pain is only about a 7 though, so I am hopeful it is not a fracture. I probably just strained the muscles in my enthusiasm about finally getting back to working out... I'll keep you posted.
Nicole

[Pat Walter]

Hi Nicole

Usually when people have femur neck fracture they are in very very bad pain.  Of course, I am not a doctor, I am only telling you what others have written.

At three weeks post op you are really very early in our recovery.  It is easy to over do and really upset muscles.

The best things to do if you ever have a question is just what you did - call your doctor.  An x-ray will usually tell if there are any other problems.  There have been a lot of lose cups lately also.  That will give a lot of pain too. 

We will keep our fingers crossed for you.  Hopefully, you will just need some rest and to take it easy.

Keep in touch.

Pat

[phillwad]

Pat and all

What I love about this website, and everyone who submits, is it can put a number of us "newbies" at rest (I am 3 1/2 weeks post op), a little clunking everyso often does not appear to mean that my hip is going to fall appart before my first Doctors visit - now if I am on the floor, remembering the kidney stone pain I had a few years back, it might be worth calling the doctor

Thanks and Thanks again - Phill

[Pat Walter]

Hi Phill

Not quite sure what you are saying - are you sitting or laying on the floor and having pain?  does it hurt when you get up?

Either way, you really should not be on the floor at this point in your recovery.  It takes a lot of strain to get up from the floor.

If you have a femur neck fracture - the pain, as described by others, is terrible all the time.  You could not stand the pain.  Being in different positions, etc, would not improve the pain.

So you probably don't have a femur neck fracture - but should stay off the floor for awhile!

Pat

[phillwad]

Sorry Pat

No I am not on the floor doing any pain.

I was remembering a pain I had while trying to pass a kidney stone a few years past and saying "if it was like that" I would have to be calling my doctor.  The "clunking" I felt this morning is just "par for the course" in the recovery phase and I should not worry about it - that is the lesson I learned from the site today- therefore "thanks"

Thanks for your concern - Phill

[Roboclimber]

I know this post is dated, but since I have experienced this issue first-hand I felt I should post what happened to me.


I am in Vancouver, BC. You would be hard pressed to find anyone here who even knows what a hip resurfacing is, and I have been very badly misdiagnosed multiple times on even the basic assessment of hip arthritis. Both my first hip resurfacings failed, but it may have been due to my desire to be a hare and not a tortoise. I will never know for sure, but when my hips did start to fail it still boggles my mid that it was not recognized as such. One particular day I remember a couple of years ago now I woke up and things started OK. I had done a kind of walk/ run a couple of days earlier with some minor discomfort, but no real pain. However, as I moved around my house having coffee, getting breakfast, going to my desk I noticed an increasing discomfort that began to get increasingly painful.


When things got really bad was when I was sitting at my desk around 9 am. I suddenly realized I could not sit another second, so I tried to stand up.


I could not weight bear on my right hip. Both had been resurfaced by this time, but the right was older. I started freaking out, because the pain was BAD...and I literally could not move. I stood there on one leg for a bit before I realized what might be happening, so I called my doctor. He advised me to call 911, so I did.


My condo entrance has a couple of levels of stairs to access my place, and I couldn't even get down the 1st flight to open the front door, so I had to describe on the phone to the paramedics where my "hidden top secret front door key" is found. Good thing I had done that! The paramedics ended up taking me out on a stretcher to Lion's Gate Hospital. Neighbours who saw this thought I was dying.


At the ER I was given some pain meds and x-rayed. I tried to describe what a hip-resurfacing was to the attending physician who clearly had no idea what I was talking about. After a few hours he came back with the findings: everything is hunky-dory, nothing to fret about. It's just that bursitis thing again - same thing I had kept getting told for the last few months, even from the surgeon who had performed the resurfacing surgery.


Bursitis?...Are you kidding me? I could not weight bear on that leg and you're dismissing it as bursitis? Ok, I thought, you're the medical experts. I'll go with that...thank goodness it's not a hip joint failure, because that would be horrible news.


Except, they were wrong.


Over the last couple of years this same thing ended up happening to both hips, and I got used to it enough that I did not freak out and call 911. Instead, I just holed up for a few days until things calmed down. In effect, I became a prisoner in my own home, something I thought was ancient history.


i saw multiple doctors and physios (again) until November 2014, when I corralled my surgeon long enough to take a GOOD HARD LOOK at my x-rays. He had initially been doing his usual rapid fire rounds with patients at his clinic in Montreal, and it was obvious to me he had not seriously considered my concerns...until now. Then I saw it in his eyes. He knew. that's when the blame game started and a discussion about a possible revision to a THR began. He wanted me to wait 6 months and see what happens.


Despite feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of what all this meant, I contacted Dr Pritchett's office immediately and set up an appointment for the following week. I had heard that revisions were possible - if required - but I was still hoping this might all be bursitis.


Pritchett's visit was a jaw-dropper for me. The right hip is failing, he told me, but the good news is he can revise it with a replacement acetabular cup (femoral unit looked OK), and the recovery would be rapid. The really bad news was that this would cost me $25,000 USD per hip, and the left might have to be redone as well (it was, and both femoral and acetabular were loose). Pritchett also told me he doubted I would be able to last 6 months to see what happens, and he made it clear: it is a "no-brainer" that the right hip is toast.


The fact that Pritchett was so easily able to diagnose my failing right hip should be a learning experience to us all: when in doubt, go to those top-dogs listed on this website for a real opinion. I love BC, but it is a wasteland here for this kind of surgery, and public medical care here means months of waiting for hips. Canada has been great to me for my spinal work (5 spinal surgeries), and we are leaders in some types of medicine, but sadly we are currently not at the cutting edge for the latest advances in hip surgery, even if you decide to opt-out of the public system and pay for private. I really hope this will change.


Canada currently has a great track record of making patients sit and suffer, stuffing them full of pain meds until they're addicts, and then pulling the rug out completely at some point by denying proper access to both meds and surgery. Hips are a particularly notorious problem, and many do as I eventually did: go out of country to the experts when you lose enough trust with the locals.

I hope this helps. Remember that treating a failed joint is a lot like dealing with a broken bone in your leg. If you can't weight-bear the likelihood is high enough that a bone issue is involved that you need to investigate the possibility of a joint failure.

[hernanu]

Wow. Sorry you had to go through all of that, you deserve the best of luck with the revisions.


Just emphasizes that we have to be our own best advocates. We know best how our body feels.