Hello all,
I am new here so please excuse me for asking a question that has already been asked.
But first here is a little about me. I have one bad hip that started giving me occasional problems one year ago when I was 59. I had a hip athroscopy done on it to correct the shape of the femoral head. This was called a femoral acetabulum impingement problem by the surgeon. In addition to removing the impingement and repairing the labrum, the surgeon debrided some of the cartilage in the joint which he determined to have arthritic changes. I now have about 1 mm. of joint space in the upper part of that hip, no new cartilage grew back. The surgery did not make my hip better. There is some continuous pain now and the surgeon who did the surgery said that I would definitely have to have a joint replacement in this hip. This, of course, was disappointing given that the surgeon, renowned in his field of hip arthroscopy, had given me great hope of full recovery. So, now I am researching all of my options. I am in very good physical shape, have good bone health and tolerate surgery very well. I am very light for my height (5'9"/ 145 pounds) I would like to stay as active as I possibly can for as long as I can. I don't have any delusions about being able to run or play contact sports, basketball, dance the jitterbug, or play gymnastics. I would love to be able to resume surfing as I have done for almost 50 years but if that is not possible I can learn to live without it. Walking, bicycling, swimming, playing golf, weight training, etc. are some things I hope I could continue to do after I have the resurfacing or THR surgery. I am sure that I will have a million questions to ask as I am very apprehensive about what the future holds in store for me, but let me start with only one.
The question is this: I read today on a doctor's website that the cup used in resurfacing is much larger than that used in THR. Therefore, the doctor said, if a THR is required at some time in the future after resurfacing has been done, the extra bone removed in the acetabulum during resurfacing can cause problems for the surgeon doing subsequent THR. Here is a link to the website I referred to:
http://www.hiphelp.com/pages/hottopics.html#Anchor-Resurfacing-35882 Has anyone heard of this complication? Is the doctor's statement about the much greater bone excavation on the acetabulum during resurfacing correct?
Thanks for responding to my post,
Jerry