Update Ernie’s Hip Resurfacing with Dr. Gross 2015 – Dr. Kress 2011
Update May 27, 2017 – I’m sharing my story because I know that there are others who are experimenting with what it is possible to accomplish physically with resurfaced hips. I have been a life long runner, although the only official race I ran was the Marine Corp Marathon in 1987 at age 30, time 3:14. I was running 7-9 miles on mountain trails when I first felt the hip pain in 2005. I just “ran through it.” I finally went to a doctor in November 2010 and the X-rays showed that both of my hips were bone on bone, though only the right one was hurting me, a lot.
I had my right hip resurfaced in April 2011 by Dr. Kress in Atlanta, but didn’t return to running then for two reasons: (1) I got a big furry Great Pyrenees dog that didn’t like / couldn’t handle running more than a sprint; (2) my left hip was severely arthritic and I was trying to put off the cost of another resurfacing as long as I could. So instead of running I walked my dog 4-5 miles every morning and lifted weights and did 60 to 90 minutes on the elliptical at the gym. Eventually my second hip completely failed.
In May 2015 I had my second hip resurfaced by Dr Gross in South Carolina. I soon worked back up to walking my dog 4-6 miles every morning, and lifting weights at the gym three times a week.
After moving across the country to Northern California, I resumed running for two months in September and October of 2016, starting at 2 miles but eventually working up to 6 miles at 9 minutes per mile pace, way slower than I used to run. But then I stopped running over the winter for 4 months for many complex reasons; the daily rain was surely a contributing factor. But now I’ve resumed running regularly again. Today I ran 6.7 miles with no problem. After two months I finally feel like I’m running naturally again, rather than stumbling along through will power. My goal is to run a half-marathon by my 60th birthday in September. One of the things that has affected my training is doubt about whether my resurfaced hips will be damaged prematurely by returning to running. As I have wrestled with this I thought that if people with resurfaced hips who had returned to running had experienced device failure they would have come back to this site to warn others. Since no one has done this, I am assuming that running is not causing device failure.So I am going to continue to test my resurfaced hips by training for a half-marathon, since I get great joy from running through beautiful, hilly scenery. And I promise that I will post on this site if I have a problem. We are in this together!