Does you recovery depend on your physical condition before surgery?

[Pat Walter]

Pat:

 This may be a foolish question, but what feeling did you have with your
operated hip when putting weight on it for the first time?  How did this
feeling change over the first week or two? When waking up from surgery,
how quickly did you begin to try to move your operated leg?

 These are probably "in the weed" questions.   I am simply curious if my
operated leg will hurt, and to what degree when I first put weight on
it. Will the leg feel like it is not part of my body and I have to will
it to move.

 Inquiring minds....


 Have a great day,


 Wayne

[Pat Walter]

Hi Wayne

No question is foolish. We all have different questions.

My real problem when I first put weight on my leg was that I was in a
Morphine stupor.  The morning after surgery, they asked me to use the
bedpan.  Didn't work first time, then a few hours later we tried again.
Success, but somehow I must have really put pressure on my new hip and it
began to REALLY HURT!  It brought me to tears.  They quickly gave me a
morphine shot in my thigh since I was already off the morphine drip. It took
over very quickly and I fell asleep.  After that they took me via wheelchair
to get my hip x-rayed.  It all took a few hours and when I returned to my
room, I needed to use the bathroom and was afraid of the bedpan. So they put
me on a walker to get to the bathroom.  Because of the morphine shot - I was
high and did not feel a thing.

Most people are up the next day after surgery learning to use crutches
overseas.  I think it is quite similar here in the states. They also teach
you to do stairs before you leave the hospital. Unfortunately when they were
teaching all of this, I was out sleeping from the morphine shot. So I only
used a walker in the hospital. Most people used crutches. The second day
after surgery I was walking on the walker very slowly since I was ready to
leave the hospital.  There was really no pain at all in my hip when I stood
on my leg.  We were still taking some codene pain tablets and maybe that
helped me not feel anything.  Any time after that, I never had my leg hurt
when I stood on it.  Now my muscles were very sore and the incision area was
very tender - but no throbbing or hurting when I stood or was in bed.  It
did become sensitive when I was sitting for a long time and I would stand up
and move around if it started to feel like there was pressure in my hip from
the chair.

Dr. De Smets patients and oveseas patients are treated quite differently
than US patients.  Dr. De Smet says you can put 100% weight on your new hip
immediately after surgery.  If you can't, the operation was not done
properly. Of course, you just don't actually want to do that, but within a
few days I was able to.  I had difficulty moving my leg up and down from the
bed and around in the bed.  I did everything very gently.  I was actually
able to lift my leg from the floor to my bed after about 3 or 4 days.  That
is unusual.  You usually need help to do that. Some people have a person to
help and others put their good leg under the operated leg to lift it on the
bed.  Of course, you are actuall laying on the bed with your operated leg
still on the floor.  Some people have also just grabbed their pants to help
pick their leg up.  But you need to watch that you don't break the 90 degree
rule. The thigh of your operated leg must not come closer than a 90 angle to
your upright body.

I could not lift my leg up from the bed after I was laying there for 4 or 5
days.  You try, but you just can't. But for some reason, I coud lift it up
from the floor.  I guess I was using different muscles. Abduction, moving
your leg out to the side is almost impossible for quite a few days and
sometimes weeks. But basic walking was very easy.  I did not have much
energy to go far, but I was walking with one crutch at 4 days.  One crutch
was easier for me since I did not have good upper body strength.  The crutch
is on the opposite side of your operated leg and goes forward with the leg
steping forward.  This takes almost 60% of the weight off your leg.  If you
try to use it on the same side - it does not take hardly any weight off.  It
is incorrect to use one crutch on the same side as your operated leg.  Also
use on the opposite side.

You can't feel the new metal hip inside you - it just feels like your own
hip.  I did get some clunking - a funny feeling like a loosness in tne hip.
Dr. De Smet says it is because the muscles are loss and need to tighten up.
I still get a little of it, but not much.  Some people get a lot and some
don't.  Some doctors say it is the ligaments moving over the new hip.

I also got very stiff after about 6-8 weeks. I had to take some water
therapy. After sitting, it would take 4-6 steps to loosen up and it really
hurt to walk, then it would be ok after a few steps.  It is a muscle issue
and water walking and stretches really helped me.

Hope that helps you out.

Pat

[jjiam]

Just going through surgery, my doctor had me up the day after my procedure.  I was allowed to put as much weight on my hip as I could stand.  The familar "pain" deep in your hip is gone, when I got up I had no pain in my hip, it was all my muscles, and yes they are SORE.  You have to be "brave" to get up, I thought there was no way I could take the pain, but your body is remarkable, and each of us is also, so we can do anything we set our mind to!

[takilasunrise]

Do you think it has anything to do with your age or what kind of shape you're in prior to the surgery on how fast you recover? 

[Pat Walter]

In general you age and shape doesn't seem to make a difference in your recovery.  I have read thousands of posts on the other group.  Some younger people in pretty good physical shape have had very slow recoveries, while older out of shape people like me, have recovered very quickly.

Some of the very athletic people that went to Dr. Bose in India have recovered very fast. Even running a marathon at 3 months.  But that just is not the norm.

I see that many of the overseas patients seem to have faster recoveries.  Several reasons for that.  The overseas doctors are very, very experienced and have very unrestritive post op protocols.  Some of the US doctors are following that, but most are very, very conservative.  They are new to resurfacing and don't want any femur neck fractures and don't want any law suits.

Sometimes the very athletic and muscular men have a difficult recovery because they doctor has had a difficult time dislocating the hip for the replacement. The more difficult the dislocation, the more post op pain.  Us old ladies are out of shape and don't have great muscle tone - we are easy to dislocate.  I had no bruising or swelling and almost no pain after the second day. 

The surgery technique of the doctors makes a big difference.  I was with 8 other De Smet hippies in Belgium and none of us had swelling or bruising. We all partied every night in the lounge together from the day we left the hospital. The younger hippies were off and walking much farther and faster than I was. But I was walking in town after 5 days on one crutch.  Only used Advil for muscle sorness.  When you can see 8 others rehabing with your, you really get to see the results of the surgeons work.

So in the end - you still can't predict how quickly you will recover. It doesn't hurt to stay in shape, especially the upper body since you will be using crutches for awhile.

Pat in Ohio
3/15/06 LBHR De Smet