I am coming up on my three year anniversary, and thought that I would post a somewhat detailed update. For the old timers on this site, you can fast forward through this since it is all old news, but for the new people who are interested in how a new hip holds up in an old (60) active body, read on.
Backgound:
I have spent my winters skiing since I was very young. Grew up ski racing, went on to compete in freestyle moguls and aerials, appeared in some films jumping cliffs etc, and have been teaching high level skiing full time (8 hours a day, seven days a week) up to the present.
I have been teaching high wind windsurfing in Hawaii for the past 28 summers. Summer mornings are spent surfing on a waveski, or playing tennis.
Back in my twenties and thirties, I earned my black belt in three similar styles of Karate. Dr. Gross thinks that the extreme stretching that I did back then may have been a leading contributor to my hip issues. (Of course a few motorcycle crashes and innumerable high speed ski crashes may have had something to do with it as well
)
Hip History:
By my mid thirties, I had to give up Karate.
By forty, I had to give up tennis.
By 45 I had to give up surfing
, and walked with a very painful and noticeable limp. I could not come close to straightening my hip out, and had pain 24/7
. Still teaching skiing and windsurfing full time.
When I was about 50, I had arthroscopy on my hip to clean up a torn labrum and some crushed cartilage. This yielded about a 20% improvement for a few years.
Three years ago, just before I turned 57, I tried a stem cell injection treatment that was a disaster. Afterwards, I could not get around without crutches or a cane, and could not even swim in a pool.
A few months later, I had my left hip resurfaced by Dr. Gross who I think is fantastic; cementless with a 39% cup angle. At the time he said that the X-rays of the right one did not look so good either, but I had never had any problems with it, so we left it alone.
Today:
My right hip has started to go bad over the past year, so I think that another resurfacing in coming up in the next year or so.
Current state of my resurfaced hip:
I continue to think of my resurfaced hip as being a big success. I am not one of those people who says that they never feel it, but it does allow me to do a lot of things that I could not do before, and the serious pain is gone.
I walk pain and limp free, except after unusually intense athletics. At these times, the soft tissue reminds me that it has been through some serious trauma, and gets kind of achy, but no sharp pains. Going for a 30 minute walk afterwards often makes things feel better.
Hiking and light jogging on mountain trails is great.
I do a lot of stairs; both for conditioning, and because we live up six flights during the summer. I can still sometimes feel the surgery site when walking up stairs. When I do running laps up and down the six flights for conditioning, I do not notice it as much.
Skiing continues to improve each year after the surgery, with no problems with the new hip. Heli-skiing every year, but I do avoid icy bumps now due to all of my joints.
Windsurfing gets better each year also, with the only issue being the pounding the joints take when flying across choppy water at 30mph+. Sometimes both hips are a little stiff and sore afterwards.
I got back into tennis last year, after a twenty year layoff. It feels good, but both hips get sore after about 2 hours.
Bike riding is not a problem, though I still feel the surgery site sometimes on steep uphill climbs.
Motorcycle riding is not a problem, though my other hip gets very sore and achy after awhile.
I had a lot of "clunking" in the first few weeks and months after surgery. It progressively went away over the first year or so, and is now gone.
I had a few bouts of trochanteric bursitis during the first year or two, but that also seems to be pretty much gone now.
Long car rides were still not that fun at one or two years, but was not a problem this year.
One thing that has not changed since surgery, is that my hip is my alarm clock. It still wakes me up a few times in the early morning hours, and gets sore enough every morning to motivate me to get up and moving, which always makes it feel better.
Overall, I would say that this year compared to last year, both of my hips get a little more sore and achy after intense sports. However, this is also true of every other part of my body
, so it is hard to fault the resurfacing.
I had my serum Chromium levels checked last year, and it came out at 1.3 which I am very happy with.
So after three years, would I recommend a resurfacing to someone who needs it; absolutely, I recommend it all the time.
Am I in a hurry to get my other one done. Not really, because at least for me, my experience tells me that after the surgery, the joint is not quite as good as new, and there may be minor issues to deal with fairly permanently, especially if you really push it. Dr Gross said that though it is bone on bone, I can wait another year or so, and still be a good candidate. Therefore, I am waiting until my right hip gets noticeably worse on average than my resurfaced hip, before I have it done.
So there you have it; a hopefully balanced three year report from another happy hippy.
Topic: 3 year anniversary report (Read 3993 times)
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