Brian Flanagan’s Hip Resurfacing with Dr. Whately 2018
March 4, 2018
I first met Dr Chris Whately more that 1 year ago. He directly mentioned that I could be a good candidate for Hip Resurfacing. He is from Canada. He took a lot of time to explain everything.
I’ve seen him last week and he explained that he is comfortable with both technics : total hip replacement or hip resurfacing. For my case, he said that I am a good candidate for hip resurfacing : male, young and in good shape.
I can’t remember the name of the device he uses (not BHR), but this is the same that Jean-Claude Vandamme has. Metal on metal and with cement on the femur part. He has used BHR device but prefers the other one, I can’t remember why. He regularly does hip resurfacing and mentioned that some of his patients have been back to Marathon or other sports (skying). I’m booked with him for the HR surgery next week.
March 12, 2018
I’m 40 years old and I’ve been suffering from my left hip since I was 20. I’m TaeKwonDo black belt and had to stop doing Taekwondo 6 years ago because it was becoming too painful. I continued doing sport using anti-inflammatory and was managing the pain and the loss of flexibility . I was limping when walking more than few meters. Looking at the X-ray my hip was a mess and I scratched too much my joints.
I met Dr Chris Whately and he told me that I was a good candidate for hip resurfacing : male, young and in good shape. So I had the surgery yesterday (March 11th 2018, for the record) : I went to the operating block at 12pm and was back in my room at 4pm. Doctor told me that everything went fine. A physiotherapist showed me how to use the crutches and gave me a document with few exercises to do at home. I left the hospital at 9:30pm the same day.
Now I’m day +1 , my leg is swollen but this looks clean. It’s not painful till I don’t move …
March 14, 2018
So quick update after 3 days. Every move is so painful ! My thigh and my butt are swollen. If I don’t move and if I stay lying down on the bed, it’s not painful at all.
I don’t have enough strength to raise my left leg or to move away my leg using my abductor. Hope this will come back soon. I’m using 2 crutches to move and I try my best to put the minimum of weight on my left foot, though my Doctor said that this was fine. According to him, there is no problem, I can put weight on it.
April 3, 2018
Almost 4 weeks after the surgery. – 10 days after the surgery, Doctor has removed the 20 staples and an Xray was done for checkup. Doctor is happy with what he saw on the X-rays. Everything looks fine.
– a little bit before day+3 weeks, had sex standing up. No pain at all. I tried to be careful. A day + 3 weeks : only using only 1 crutch
– 3 weeks and some days : some pain on the side, exactly on the location of the staples. But the pain comes and goes. When I walk a little bit fast, I mean without behind very careful, I can feel like a very small clic (or clank) inside of the hip. It’s more like a feeling.
April 8, 2018
Now, I’m 4 weeks post op. I still need to use 1 crutch to walk. I have tried without a crutch, but I still don’t have enough strength to put my full weight on my foot. For now, without any crutch, it’s fine to walk around 3 meters. I can see that this is improving quickly. I don’t have any trouble to sit for a long time on a comfortable seat. But on a hard seat, this is not good at all.
I am doing a very soft massage daily with Bio Oil on the scar since last week. Scar looks quite “nice”. I don’t sleep well. I’m usually awake around 2 am, with pain in the thigh and sweating.
April 20, 2018
Week 5 :
My fifth week was quite difficult. I felt better but I was still weak on my muscles. I don’t use my crutch anymore.
At the end of this week, I see a lot of improvements.
– I was finally able to tighten my shoes alone 🙂 ! hahah finally
– Had sex with my girlfriend on me. Was a bit worried but she was careful and tried not to put weight on my weight hip. But no pain, so that’s good.
At the end of the fifth week, I am almost walking without limping so I am happy.
Went in the pool and started walking a little bit. That’s great to feel the muscles waking up 🙂
I have some difficulties to feel the muscles in my left butt and it’s quite new to use them, that’s funny.
May 18, 2018
This is a 10 weeks update (time is flying !) :
I’ve had some pain during 2-3 last weeks on the front side when I’m raising the leg on the articulation. I don’t think that this is the psoas, probably the tendon. My guess is that my muscles are still weak so my tendon is doing more job. I feel better now. I walk every day a minimum of 8-10 minutes go back from the office.
I’ve not been a perfect patient. I’ve danced 2-3 salsas 3 weeks ago, nicely of course, but the day after I was not good during 2 days.
I am still doing a quick massage every morning to the scar with Bio-Oil. It’s good for the scar and also I am doing this to work on any possible frictions inside of the muscles/tissues .
I’ve started going to the pool the last 2 weeks and walked inside of the pool. Then I did some gentle stretches. This is good. I can feel my remaining muscles in my left butt waking up 🙂 I used to avoid using my muscles in my left butt, so this is quite new. I am also vert happy to see that I’m getting back quickly my flexibility. I would like to push a little bit more because the feeling is great but I don’t want to injure my hip. I’m so worried to injure it.
I really feel good so I would like to start going back to the gym without using any weights, but apparently it’s better to wait for 3 months.
May 28, 2018
Week 11 :
I have continued walking in the pool and also doing exercices and stretchings. That’s very good. I’ve started swimming and I’ve done front crawl . That’s a good feeling to feel back doing some sport 🙂 I still feel some normal pain after swimming and my muscles are a little bit weak.
I’ve tried the breast stroke and this was painful but not a good pain. I mean not a muscular pain, but more like a lack of flexibility and amplitude or range.
June 18, 2018
3 months update. I saw my Physiotherapist one week ago. She told me that I did great by massaging the scar and that the surgeon did a great job with the scar as the scar looked very nice. She has manipulated my hip and this was very very painful. She told me that my muscles and tendons need to be moved and gain flexibility as they have been used not to move a lot. She also told me that I am fine to start doing exercises such as squats or balance on 1 leg. She also told me that I can do bike .
I’ve started going back to the gym then and that’s good ! Doing indoor bike is good but it’s still a little bit painful when my knee is bent closer to my chest. Hope this will be better and I will be able to bend my hip and my knee more than 90 degrees without pain. After my gym workout, I go to the sauna. Sauna + cold water is great for the body according to lots of high level sport guys.
My global 3 months feedback is that this is great. I can walk for a long time without pain. My back is not hurting after a long walk. If I touch the scar, this is still painful, like needles or planting a knife
June 24, 2018
Quick update after my first week going back to the gym. I was feeling too good so I decided to work on my upper body with almost the same workout program as before, which means dumbbell bar and weights.
I did not use weights for my low body , only for my upper body, but moving the weights was too much for me. My leg and my butt were painful during 2 days after the session, like before the surgery.
So I went back nicely to the gym after this, doing indoor bike, squats (without weights for now) and other balance exercises
It’s a good learning. My muscles are still weak, even if I feel good. I will come back this week to the gym for workout but will avoid moving weights and will use machines with cables. I don’t want to move/carry weights.
I’ve seen the physiotherapist. She is moving my hip and forcing me to stretch my abductors. Sometimes, I’m scared that she is going to break my new hip. She has indicated a lot of exercises to work on my muscles and how to stretch as well. Honestly, this is super painful ! I thought this was going to be easy as I have always been flexible but my body has been also blocking some movements for so many years that I need to work on that. I just hope that my new hip allows the movements and this is the lack of mobility which prevents some moves.
July 2, 2018
Update at almost 4 months. I don’t feel pain when I walk even for quite a long time. My back is not painful at all.
My muscles are still a little bit weak if I push too much. This week-end, I forgot the surgery as I was jumping inside of the pool. You know you have water till 1,50m and you are jumping. The day after and for 2 days I still feel the pain.
The physiotherapist keeps pushing quite hard on the moves to stretch my hip. I have pain when I lay down on the table and she is trying to get my left hip closer to my chest further than 90 degrees. The pain is on the front side of the hip. I don’t if it’s the muscles or the tendons, hopefully not the new hip. To be honest I’ve been blocked for more than 10 years because of my bah hip so I suppose I need time to gain a larger range of motion. My PT told me to try not to stay too long in front of my desk and if possible to stretch a little bit during the day. I don’t really do that 😉
I’ve found the operation report, see what is indicated :
“We then prepared the femoral head to accept a 140-degree angled Conserve Plus hip resurfacing device which is #50 mm in size. ….
We did sequential reaming up to a #56-mm size and then placed a 56-mm outer diameter Conserve Plus acetabular component in 40 degrees of abduction and 20 degrees of anteversion …”
September 6, 2018
Some update before my 6 months post-op which is exactly next week-end 🙂
In a summary, I am very happy with the results. I’ve stopped seeing the physiotherapist after my 6 sessions as the doctor thought she was pushing a little bit too hard. I’m doing some moves she has advised, but for sure I don’t stretch enough.
I am going to the gym between 3 to 5 times a week. Everytime, I will do either bike, elliptical bike or incline walking (8-10%) on the treadmill. And then I will do my workout : upper body or working on my glutes, butt and legs.
I can see the results. I now have my butt back. I can’t wear some of my trousers because they are too small now, which is good as I gain muscles.
I walk without pain and without limping. That’s great !!!
My only concerns is that I have a pain when I raise my left knee, even if I am sitting on a chair or already standing up. The pain seems to be on the tendon and is exactly located in the inguinal fold. I don[‘t know the name of this tendon. I’ve checked and I already mentioned this pain at 3 weeks after the surgery.
The pain will go away if I take muscle heated creams. I like baume aroma and it works well . (The cream Baume Arôma is used for Muscular and Tendino-Ligamentary Pain. It is made with Methyl Salicylate, essentials oils of cloves and of jamaïca pepper.) I used it a lot when I was doing martial arts and then the other guys used it because it was effective 😉
I think there is an inflammation which doesn’t go away. I suppose I should see the orthopedist.
The pain is like the pain I had when I started to feel the pain in my hip when I was 20 years old.
I will start running next week as this will be 6 months after the surgery and I will give you an update.