Bilateral 01-Dec-2014 with Dr. Pritchett

[mwpierce]

I had my first hip resurfaced by Dr. Pritchett in Seattle on 12-Aug-2014 and it went really well. After the six-week mark I started more rigorous PT in order to prepare for my second BHR. Getting the right BHR allowed me to do a lot of walking, which I really pushed, and got my leg back in good enough strength for the left one. All that walking also completed the wear job on my left hip so about a month before hand I was really looking forward to the surgery.

The second surgery went even better than the first. I had much less swelling though one of my left leg adductor muscles really got tweaked so much that I when I do the PT abduction exercises I have to bend my leg so my foot is closer to my groin before adducting for the next rep.

During my recovery (which I'm 10 days into now) I experienced more leaking at the incision site than before and I think that is attributed to pushing my PT more than with my right leg (I'm trying to quickly increase mobility so I can have less attrophy). With my right leg I pitched my crutches at day 9 and this time I tried at day 7. The result is that my leg function is even better at this point than at the same day for my other leg but I've still got a spot on my incision that leaks a little bit; it's only just a drop or two though and I expect it to be completely sealed tomorrow or the next day. So as I was saying, I went day seven without crutches but at the end of the day there was a lot of leakage so I went totally on crutches for day 8 which greatly helped the incision seal.

One of the things that I found that really helped regain function was that when I went down my flight of stairs at home (16) I would use the crutches on one side and the rail on the other while carefully moving through a regular stair gait (not down with the bad, up with the good, but one step after the other as normal). By supporting the vast majority of my weight on the rail and my crutch I forced my quadracep through a negative bend which really loosened up the muscles and once I got down I could walk for a while without the aid of crutches. Now I'm on day 9 (surgery was day 0), my incision is nearly leak-free and I can walk completely without crutches.

I'll update further after I see Dr. Pritchett on 15-Dec-2014

[hernanu]

How did it go?

[mwpierce]

It's now 12-July-2015, about 8 1/2 months since my second BHR, and things are going quite well. Since having both hips done I've been able to walk to/from work every day (about 1 mile each way) as well as do pretty much any piece of cardio equipment in the gym (treadclimber, stairclimber, eliptical, bike, etc.) Dr. Pritchett cleared me at ~6 months for jump roping as long as I land symmetrically and says I can commence running at 10 months.


Now that my hips are functioning well and I can be much more active I have been able to drop about 15 lbs and once again do yard work. My right hip, which was done in August 2014 feels almost totally normal and I very rarely have any indications that I've had a surgery. My left hip still has some startup pain when I stand up after sitting for a while and still feels like it's got some pressure surrounding the hip joint, though no pain (this was the case for my right hip too but it went away about two months ago).


As far as flexibility goes, my hamstrings need a lot more stretching (putting on my socks is still a struggle). Hip abduction is probably the best it has been since I was pre-pubescent but I do have some range limiting when drawing my knees to my chest; it feels like I've got some soft tissue impingement at the front of my hip joints if I keep my knees together while I draw them to my chest but two tylenol and two aspirin makes the pain go away which for me means it most likely really is soft tissue that can probably be stretched. Fortunately I do not have a need yet to draw my knees up in that fashion so I'm pretty much good to go.


As far as pushing my limits, I try to stay within the bounds set by Dr. Pritchett but I do step out once in a while just to do some quick tests. For instance, when walking home I might break into a trot for 100 yards or so just to see how things feel and things feel good! I presently weigh about 248 lbs (down from a top of 264 before surgery) and think I should be able to get down to about 225 lbs before running commences (that's a good running weight for me as I'm kind of a big guy).


As far as leg length goes, I can tell that my right leg is a bit longer than my left but it is not giving me any problems so far. I haven't tried my Wii balance board yet to see how I'm load balancing with legs slightly apart but I'm not concerned.


All-in-all I'm far better off now than before my surgery and am quite happy with my functionality. Really glad I did my investigation, found Dr. Pritchett, and my insurance was happy to cover it.