Height adjustment??

[hoyt66]

I remember when I had my first appt with Dr. Schmitt, he had mentioned he might be able to "adjust" the height a little of the leg I'm have resurfaced. Is this a matter of seating the femur implant a little shallower? Oh yeah....

T-MINUS  7

[Tin Soldier]

I don't know all the details about those sorts of adjustments, but I do know that my surgeon and I think many others, try to make up the 8 mm of spacing between ace bone and fem bone.  I think one of the main measures of OA is the spacing decrease between the bones as the cartilage is lost and osteophytes grow.  Both of my hips were in the 4 mm range.  I believe that is the min distance allowed for arthroscopic surgery, the notion being that if you carve too much bone off the ace rim you might destablize the hip, thus you'd need a prosthetic.  I'm sure there are a lot of other factors that are considered for athroplasty.

I've always wondered how the surgeon picks reference points for matching hips and getting the "spacing" back (the HR device has micron spacing, the component thickness's make up the difference).  Do they pull your legs and measure them side by side like a PT does?  Do they take a few points on the pelvis and the femur in an intra-op x-ray and try to match those up in the operated hip?  Or is it simpler than that and they just measure from the trochanter to ace rim? 

In short, yes they do want your hips to match and I think if you are a bilat to be they probably consider that for the first surgery and maybe they do just go for an 8 mm standard.  Good question.  See what your surgeon says.