Philosophical question: When is the "right" time to get hip resurfacing.

[ocwa80]

Hi there,

I'm new to Surface Hippy. A 45 year old male, with globally moderate and focally severe arthritis in my right hip. Bummed to have to deal with this at a fairly young age but grateful we live in a time where options are available and to the wealth of wisdom and the spirit of sharing on this website.

One thing I am wrestling with is "when" to get the surgery. Within the course of the year, I'll aim for January or February, simply because the weather is crumby and the holidays are behind us at that point. The more searching question, however, is 1) should I wait and get as much life out of my arthritic hip as possible and then get the surgery, or 2) go through with it now so I can pursue my activities pain free. I imagine others have wrestled with the same question and would love to hear how you reached a resolution.

I am currently able to play tennis at a reasonable level and manage my pain with rest and ibuprofen. I used to be an avid runner but no longer do that because of the pain. I've also lost a fair range of motion in my affected hip and rely on little tricks to get my right shoe on. I experience pain in my hip frequently, but not always, but am certainly always aware of the underlying dysfunction in the joint.

Given I can still do many things, I'm wondering if opting for hip resurfacing now, at age 45, is a bit greedy and whether I should wait to push this out, so that the hip has a better chance of lasting me the rest of my life, or, at least push out the age at which I would need a revision.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[MattFL]

I had mine done at 50 years old.  My doctor told me "you will know when it's time" and he was right.  Your case sounds very similar to mine, except running was one of the last things that I could do, oddly enough.  It took me a few years to progress from occasional pain that was manageable with meds, to being basically disabled, prescription meds not helping and my life revolving around managing the pain.  On the up side, I had absolutely zero doubts or regrets when I did the surgery because of how bad my hip had become.

In hindsight, knowing how it turned out so far, doing it earlier would have been good, I would have taken less medication and returned to normal life faster.  But at the same time I have no regrets on waiting because I know 100% for sure I left nothing on the table for the old hip, it was done.  Just being able to sleep, and not having to take any pain medication at all has been life changing all by itself.  Plus being able to do fun things again really improved the quality of life a ton. 

My one piece of advice would be, do the absolute best you can to increase range of motion and flexibility leading up to the surgery.  They really torque things around and for me the soft tissue damage was the most difficult part of recovery.  When I look at the people who recover super fast, they all seemed to have very good flexibility going into surgery.  I have no data for this, it's just my own anecdotal observation, but having lived it I think being more flexible going into surgery would help reduce the soft tissue damage caused by the doctor having to move things around, and potentially make your recovery faster and easier. 

Prior to surgery, when I was still managing with meds, I did try several weeks of PT, and I was able to increase range of motion quite a bit, so maybe try some PT prior to surgery for the sole purpose of increasing range of motion, if you're able to. 

[MattFL]

Side note: I had mine done at 50 years old.