Leslie Hip Resurfacing Mr. Treacy 2007 – Figure Skater
October 19, 2007 So, I am 2 1/2 weeks out from my hip resurfacing with Mr. Treacy in Birmingham, UK. The plane flight back to Colorado was easy on my hip but just very draining overall. This was my second hip surgery on my right hip, prior to the BHR I had surgery for labral tears, microfracture and the rebuilding of my ligementum teres, which was a stabilizing ligament between the femoral head and the acetablum. I am not that young at 43, but very active, plus tall 5’9′ and 125 lbs with a very small frame. I must admit that this second surgery has been so much easier than the first, I have no pain just the itching of my scar. I walk about 1-2 miles a day and do my exercises 3 times a day and just try not to get bored. Taking nothing for pain and only aspirin for the next two weeks. I walk with 2 canes and am working on a nice even stride, stairs are easy and have to be since I have 4 flights of stairs, my cats have shown amazing restraint and don’t try to trip me every time I move around the house, they do seem slightly worried and all 3 of them sleep next to me each night. Overall, this has been a very pleasant experience, I would highly recommend my doctor, Mr. Treacy he has done over 4000 of these hips and is a very articulate and charming doctor, the staff at the hospital was great. I stayed in the hospital for 6 nights and paid for everything out of pocket but it was really reasonable, the only thing excessive was the business class airfare but in the end that was very much worth it.
It seems I should add more about the surgery itself, I was referred to Mr. Treacy by my first surgeon Dr. Philippon at Steadman Hawkins in Colorado. I arrived on Monday in Birmingham, had my appt with Mr. Treacy, he told me I had done a good job on my hip, I had cysts and was bone-on-bone, plus hip dysplasia all which would make my hip difficult but doable. From their I went to the Priory hospital, where they took blood and asked questions. I woke up the next morning, and was the 2nd surgery of the day. I went in for surgery around 9 and was in my room by 1, I wasn’t in pain just foggy, my friend who I had listed as my next of kin came up and visited for a few hours. My scar was big about 10″ long with subcuteaneous stitches and then glued together on the top layer covered with a waterproof sterile dressing. I had an uneasy night but refused a catheter so suffered on, that was the worst part. Got a small fever and I seem to suffer from really low blood pressure usually about 80 over 50. Day 2 got up in a walker but just around the bed. Day 3 had fever but learned to walk using 2 canes, made it easily a few hundred feet. Day 4, walked a lot more and managed stairs, went through exercises and officially graduated from PT. On day 7 went to hotel, started lengthening walks, managed to go see a movie or two, saw doctor one last time, warned me about over doing it. Day 14 flew home and here I am. Leslie Treacy 10/2/07 R BHR October 26, 2007 I am not even four weeks out but I am a spry 43 and in excellent condition as a competitive athlete. I do know from talking to my doctor, Mr. Treacy that I need to gradually come back to my sport. I also do a sport that requires not only strength but incredible coordination, doing the double jumps that I could land before my large arthroscopic surgery and then my resurfacing a year later put 13-17x my body weight on my landing leg. Of course my landing leg is the one that has had all the work, luckily I don’t plan on doing triples which are 33x+ your body weight. This is why you see very light, very narrow skaters doing the harder jumps.(not to mention quads)
Suffice it to say no jumping for me until a year out of the surgery, but…that said I will do all the other components of skating like spinning, footwork, and dance. Hopefully, these will help with coordination.
It seems prudent to be careful with our new hips. Canes for 2 more weeks and then hopefully none October 29, 2007 At 2 weeks out I flew from Birmingham England to Denver, Co the trip in total took about 20 hours. My hip didn’t hurt but what I found upsetting was how incredibly weak I was 2 weeks after the surgery. What helped me was copious amounts of technology, I had tons of movies I downloaded all the John Stewart and Colbert reports I had missed I found movies I had never seen and put them on my Ipod touch. What can I say I love technology, and when it works well it is very helpful.
October 30, 2007 I still have a few more days until the scar is totally healed. I did ride a stationary bike for the first time today for about 10 minutes and then my usual walks of about 2-2 1/2 miles total for a day. I keep my knees slightly bent when I sleep and I also like to flip over onto my stomach for an hour or so each day. I just have 10 exercises I do 2x each day. Hope all continues to go well.
Leslie 10/2/07 R BHR Treacy
November 1, 2007 I am 4 weeks out plus a few days and I also don’t do any PT, my doctor (Treacy) said I could go back to pilates and ballet at 6-8 weeks. I have a set of 10 exercises that I do that work all the major muscle groups around my hip, I do simple knee bends of 50 degrees with my bum tucked under my hips for 10 seconds and the go up and balance for 10 seconds on my tip toes no holding on to anything while I do 10 sets of these. I walk about 2 miles a day with 2 canes and my doctor says no more than 2.5 miles.
Of course we all have different issues regarding our surgery, I have a very large scar and apparently had a difficult surgery due to my dysplasia and cysts on the femoral head. I only do my exercises 2-3 times a day and walk 2 x a day 1 mile each walk. The pain in my glute has gone away over this last week as I work on having an even stride and ballet like posture, shoulder back, head up looking up not down. Ballet and pointe prior to this were very helpful. As a figure skater I don’t worry about balance, my right leg is weaker due to another surgery last year, I am focusing on getting both legs equally strong.
Suffice it to say taking it easy seems to be helpful. I stop doing my exercises if the pain breaks to high a level and while it is great that some get to walk without a cane at 3 weeks I will listen to the doctor and stick it out for 6 weeks.
November 1, 2007 My doctor used a general anesthetic and interestingly I was intubated even though the surgery was all of 45 minutes long. Mr. Treacy is very fast at this surgery and has a good sized team working with him.
I was in very good shape, doing pilates 3x a week and light weight training. I had lost flexion in my right hip down to 90 degrees, it had been 160 degrees, 2 years earlier. I do take multi vitamins and glucosamine and eat pretty healthy.
I am pretty healthy but I have had surgery for cataracts, both eyes 4 years ago and the 7 hours of arthroscopic surgery just last year so my body is falling apart pretty quickly. I hope this is the last surgery for a while.
November 3, 2007 Mr. Treacy was my surgeon just over a month ago, he is great! I have had a very easy recovery even though I had a pretty messed up hip severe OA and hip dysplasia. Ms. Sumner is Mr. Treacy’s asst and surgical nurse she is very nice and very helpful. I had a nice time in Birmingham, I went to the Priory hospital instead of the Royal Orthodpedic but that was more because of when I could jet over from the states, and which of the 3 dates worked best with the airline schedule.
December 5, 2007 So I am currently 9 weeks out, I no longer use a cane single or double. Back doing pilates and walking hilly terrain everyday. I go back to my favorite sport in January. I am doing leg presses and have good flexion, even though it will take a while to get it to match my other side. My new hip tracks better than my left but everything seems to be working just fine. December 25, 2007 I have gone skating again this time with a friends 4 y/o daughter. Spent most of the time carrying her around and spinning her, which I was shocked that I could do since I had to balance most of my weight and all of hers on my R side while spinning.
All went well, I did go cross country skiing since we had 6″ of new snow. Fell twice kinda hard….one time on each hip, got a little worried but my discomfort is mostly muscular. Felt good enough to do about 1/2 an hour of pilates after dinner. Hip flexor is tight but not terribly, think I’ll just get some snow shoes and then I can walk in the snowy weather.
Going back to skating and ballet at the new year, I’ll work on simple tests starting at the beginning and slowly moving towards my old level.
January 6, 2008 My first doctor did try to replace my cartlidge, or at least repair it…7 hours of surgery….well that bought me some time but, not a lot. I am pretty young–43, I had congential issues and a case of OA that accelerated very quickly when I tore my stabilizing ligament and I became bone-on-bone.
At my year check up they said I would need the BHR, I went to the doctor my first surgeon recommended, and I think that was an excellent idea. I have no regrets about either of my surgeries I am 3 months out back doing the sport I love.
March 30 , 2008 at almost 6 months out I have finished all the adult field moves and will start working on my Jr and Sr moves on the standard track. I leave for NY for the Adult Nationals championships in figure skating next week. While I still can’t jump and won’t until the year mark most of my skills have come back stronger than they were prior to the surgery. I am doing pilates and ballet to cross train and some weights. I still get a little freaked out at how strong my right leg is. I am a figure skater going through my third incarnation. I skate, badly as a child and when my health started to become an issue I decided to take skating back up, that was at the age of 36, I had been off the ice for 18 years. I was grandfathered into the adult system at silver and then moved up to gold and then masters when I managed to pass my intermediate fs at the age of 41. I failed that test at the age of 18.
In July of 06 I had my first hip surgery for labral tears, torn ligimentum teres and impingments and sizeable microfracture. Unfortunately it was not enough and I had to have a BHR in Oct 07. My first doctor referred me to Mr. Treacy in the UK, the surgery has been very successful.
I have returned to skating and had several falls which terrified me but once I was past 4 months I was told that if the device was solid it probably wouldn’t move. I have amended my skating boots choosing to use a new technology that has a hinge at the ankle which requires much more strength but cuts the strain on my hip by greater than 40%. I have gone through the first 4 adult moves tests and am back to about 75% of my prior strength. My spins and dances are doing well and I will return to my Jr/Sr moves this coming week. I have taken my time and won’t jump until the 1 year mark.
For those not familiar with skating it is a very difficult sport, people always think it looks easy, that is the point– it takes thousands of hours of practice to make things look easy. When you watch those high level skaters remember it takes 500 attempts to get the idea of a double or triple jump, then it takes another 1000 attempts to start fully rotating the jump, another 500 badly landed but fully rotated jumps and then another 500 cleanly landed jumps and if your lucky you’ll have the jump 75% of the time. Spins have huge g forces as you learn new spins you will come out of a fast spin almost blind or seeing spots, with new rules positions must be done on multiple edges and in a variety of positions that require variation of the core position. The footwork takes days to learn and then you must increase the speed and learn to make all of these things look easy. While I am not a high level skater, I had double jumps on occasion, learning to do this at an advanced age is very difficult, my height of 5’9″ makes it almost impossible, spinning is very easy thanks to the laws of physics.