Would all of you hippies out and phreaks out there who have had great results with either 'no name' surgeons, and all of you who're feeling fantastic after using hip resurfacing surgeons with less numbers of procedures please take a moment to share your stories with us here on the board?
I've told my story more than a few times now, but I'd love to hear from you about your successful resurfacings from the less famous or exclusive surgeons. How about it?
Over 2 years ago, I had 2 failed scopes by an arthroscopic specialist surgeon to repair my bilateral FAI and labral tears, and he unfortunately missed the the most critical fact that was staring him in the face. Neither of us knew I was coming to him with a rare form of end stage, bone on bone, OA. During our consultation, he questioned the severity of my pain and told me that he had never had a successful arthroscopic outcome with patients like me. I asked the scope OA what he meant by patients like me? The Scope OA Surgeon said labral tear patients like me who presented with a prescription drug history of Oxycontin and Fentanyl before their arthroscopy were using drugs that did not fit their pathology. He said my films and scans showed normal, healthy cartilage, no arthritis or degenerative changes, and the bilateral labral tears and femoral acetabular impingement that did show did not warrant more than an occasional Vicodin. This surgeon said patients like me had drug seeking behavior and that he would not do my bilateral arthroscopies unless I stopped using my narcotics of Oxycontin and the 100mg Fentanyl Patch.
So, I did wean off them completely and in a hurry! I badly wanted my surgeon to operate and was desperate enough to try anything to get out of the intense pain I was in. I blamed myself for not being tough enough. I believed my arthroscopic surgeon when he told me I was a drug seeker, and the pain I was reporting was all in my head. I felt horrible about myself, and for the first time in my life I wondered if I had a problem.
I was scared, and even if my pain was imaginary, it was so terrible that I had stopped leaving my bed immediately after I tore both of my labrums in August 2009. I really didn't like the arthroscopic surgeon at our first meeting, and even though my 'gut' said no way Jose', I let him operate in spite of me not feeling very good about him. The scope surgeon does have a very good reputation in our buckle of the bible belt, and Dr. Arthroscopic Specialist did fix my torn labrums and FAI just fine.
Unfortunately for me, my type of OA location was and is rare. From sending my films and arthroscopy surgery notes to Dr. Sampson, CA, I learned much later that my OA was from what he called "an almost protrusio acetabuli" situation. Dr. Sampson most kindly looked at my films for free, plus called me & emailed me with his medical second opinion. I would have used him in a heartbeat because he's a highly skilled, experienced surgeon off world renown who is also humble and kind, but unfortunately he does not accept insurance.
A similar experience happened to my friend 2 years ago too. She went to a well known arthroscopic surgeon for her one hip arthroscopy, and she was also in worse pain afterward. Her surgeon basically fired her, like mine did, when she kept complaining something was wrong. Fortunately, now she's scheduled for a THR with a less known surgeon who has a lesser number of THR procedures under their belt, but she's done her research. She knows 100 percent this surgeon is the right one for her, and he is not a well known surgeon from Stanford like the one she let do her failed scope and that she couldn't stand.
I'm so fortunate too, now that I'm recovering with a middle to upper tier OA resurfacing surgeon I like. I'm so lucky and relieved that I didn't have to use another surgeon who didn't feel right in my 'gut'. Plus, I'm so happy I'm not in the position anymore where I had no choice or knowledge but to choose an arthroscopic surgeon because he was a 'name' surgeon. and the irony of course is that I needed resurfacing all along.
It turns out that my particular arthroscopic surgeon was, (or it seemed to me at least) better at wearing $3000 dollar suits and swanning about than he was at hip surgery and properly diagnosing his patients. I came to him on Oxycontin and a Fentanyl patch with labral tears showing on my films, but my scope surgeon didn't poke around and pull my femors out to to look for the obvious culprit of OA - given my prescription drug and reported pain history. Instead, my scope surgeon did a fine job on my FAI and labrum repairs, observing in his notes the lack of any degenerative disease, and sadly did absolutely nothing about looking for the bone on bone arthritis that was located between the top of my femors and the deepest recess of my acetabulum.
To be fair, my terrific hip resurfacing surgeon, Dr. Schmitt, said my OA's rare location and the fact that my OA was in an X Ray and other films' 'blind spot' made my bone on bone OA hard to spot 'unless you knew what you were looking for'.
I'm genuinely curious to see the successes hippies have had with the resurfacing surgeons who are perhaps less well known, who may be newer in their practice, and/or who have done less numbers of hip resurfacing procedures. I went back and rewrote this post because I was using too broad a brush; I realize I was labeling when all I really wanted to know about was the different successes of hippies across a broad spectrum of resurfacing surgeons with various levels of experience.
Topic: Please share your Success with Surgeons who have Less #s of Resurfacings ? (Read 3174 times)
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