Just thrusted into this Brave New world

[Asalisbu]

First of all let me express my admiration to all of you who post here, provide invaluable information, feedback, and thoughts.   

I also have the upmost respect for all of you who have taken the plunge and opted for resurfacing.   I am quite the noob in all of this and have been reading for days and days since I just got my infamous x-ray's that all of you have described telling me at age 40,  both my hips are trashed. 

I mean after reading about this it sounds like something out of a sci fi horror movie.   Some of my favorite snippets have been clunking, metal ion allergy, cup slippage, surgeon error, poor approach, longer leg sensation, avascular necrosis, neck fracture.  It sounds like Star Wars meets the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Why would anyone waddle into something with phrases like this associated with it.

Then I read as much about phrases like pain free, full range of motion, full return to sport, better then ever etc. and I get it.   there was even one posting with a guy doing a full squat again which almost made me weep tears of joy.

After a very active lifestyle and almost 20 year law enforcement career I am faced with a choice to maybe proceed with this (my current doc says I am a likely bilateral candidate, but is admittedly not a guru).  If it works great.....pain, rehab, and recovery have been constants in my life ever since I got married, bah dum dum dum (forgive my levity if I wasn't laughing I would be crying, my wife is seriously my rock).   If it doesn't work I am medically retired as I am guessing the only option is a THR.   I am the breadwinner and disability pay is a drastic pay cut and nothing I want to even consider as I want to keep up the good fight.   

Finally to my point How, how, how did you brave souls take the plunge into this with the possible risks?  The good of this is so good and the bad of this is so bad (I could make another marriage crack at this point).  I have worked in some of the most hostile places in the world and dealt with some of the worst people mankind has to offer, but on this I am just plain scared. Albeit, not spending x-mas with the in-laws scared or taking my daughter to a Justin Bieber concert scared, but scared to the core none the less.   If anyone can share their thought process going into this I will digest everything.

My pain has been around less then a month but it increases steadily now that its manifested even on prescription NSAID.   I can get through a day but that's all that I am doing. I avoid activities that I would like to do etc etc.

[jd]

Hi Asalisbu,

Thanks for sharing with us what you're going through. It made me laugh to read the litany of possibly bad outcomes too!

Keep in mind a few things:

• People posting on the site fall into two categories: those who had a major complication and found the site, and those who found it and choose to share their complete story. Most people who have successful surgeries never post here so there's a bit of a skew to covering the potential full spectrum of complications
• Some of the studies based on joint registries make things look a lot worse than they need to be because they include many inexperienced surgeons. I haven't looked it up again just now, but I believe that in the Lancet review, the average number of surgeries per surgeon was <10!! That's completely insane, and explains why they didn't see better results with resurfacing vs THRs
• If you look at the results published by the top surgeons, they're substantially better than that in aggregate joint registries.

Elaborating a little, I was a little concerned since I found out the day before surgery that I had somewhat lower than normal bone density. I was worried that I would get a femoral fracture, however my surgeon (Dr Gross) has a protocol to cover that and I figured it was OK. I still had some lingering doubts though until I found this:

http://surfacehippy.info/dr-gross-interview-about-hip-resurfacing-and-cementless-techniques/

In over 2000 cases since 2009, with 2 year follow-up (femoral fracture risk is gone at 6 months), he's had zero femoral fractures in his patients. Similarly on deep infections and dislocations. Zero. Other top surgeons in the US and internationally have, I'm sure, similar results.

So, really it's just a matter of realizing that if we go to one of the experts, they are truly extremely skilled experts and at least the major problems you read about are exceedingly unlikely to happen. Being crippled and stuck at home, unable to do the things you love with your life for many decades to come (I'm only in my mid-30s) is just unbearable in comparison.

[chuckm]

Asalisbu, if you want to be reassured about hip resurfacing for yourself, just keep researching.

You will eventually conclude that hip resurfacing, if performed by an expert surgeon, is an amazingly successful surgery.

All those scary terms are associated with poor devices implanted by poor surgeons.

This website will help you sort fact from fiction. You can also find your expert surgeon here too.

Good luck and keep researching.

Chuckm

[blinky]

Great advice.


I took the risk because 1) I was getting worse and worse and had to do something, 2) HR done by an expert offered me a chance to return to my old life (I had been super active and felt like a different person now that I wasn't), 3) the % of failure was small, small enough that I was comfortable with taking the chance. If there is a failure, I will feel like I gave my self the best chance of success.


Work it through. Send your X-rays to be reviewed for HR. Talk to some THR guys where you live, too, and see what they offer you and how you feel about them.

[Saf57]

Since, unfortunately, there is not yet a viable way to replace cartilage, those of us with arthritic hips ultimately have but two options--thr or resurfacing. If, like me(and many thousand others), you wish to remain highly active, with no restrictions, there is only one choice, resurfacing. The survival rates of resurfaced hips, performed by the experienced surgeons, actually exceed those of thr's, in the high 90's after ten years. I myself am 13 years out on my first, having had the second one done just recently. The risk you're taking is minimal given the alternative, and if that very small risk is realized, and something does go wrong, you can always be revised to a thr. I agree with Dr. Gross, and others, that all eligible candidates for resurfacing should have it done, in lieu of thr. The entrenched orthopedic community, in my view, has done a terrible disservice to perhaps hundreds of thousands of potential resurfacing candidates, by either not even presenting the option of resurfacing, or actively dissuading persons from undergoing the procedure. I, and many others on this forum and elsewhere, had to do our own research, just as you are doing now, to have discovered hip resurfacing. You are fortunate that you will now have this option.

[karlos.bell]

  Asalisbu?? nice article.
One if they get so much in pain for so many years there is no other option  one wants to walk again properly. I was on crutches for 7 years before I made the plunge due I could not get help in my own country. No offer due my hips were not degenerative they were a congenital issue with injury. Yep serious stuff but the other side I can walk now without crutches......... Hey I can even run..... Yep I have the clunking going on but hell my muscle and tendon tone was 7 years of wasting away if I had the choice I would have done it earlier due to this. I can now sit for longer than 1 hour before I could not do that, I can ride my bike... So life is better.  You will be fine find a good resurfacing surgeon that may be your best option. Good luck K


 
Asalisbu Hi....
 

[Snowbound]

I'd highly recommend bilateral if you can do it. The first couple of weeks are harder, but it's one surgery and you rehab both hips at the same time. I had the surgery in January and while I'm not fully recovered yet, I'm back to playing hockey and squash. And I can stand up straight again!



My legs aren't as strong as they once were, but I'm working out daily and slowly improving. Prior to surgery, l could spread my knees 18" apart. I'm now up to 26".


Also I could barely get my shoes on, I could just bend my knee up to a 90deg angle. I'm now able to pull my knee up to my chest.

[23109VC]

here are my thoughts:


many of us put off surgery as long as we could..that's what I did.  I started having hip pain in my late 20s.. but it was minor.  it gradually got worse into my 30s bu tit was manageable.  I gave up racquetball...stopped running..but I did other activities like swimming, cycling... weights, stair machine.. i cut out all the impact stuff...it happened slowly for me..and my job is a desk job..but like you in LE.. I"m a prosecutor... if I was a cop in the field I would have been in trouble far sooner...  anyway...  in my late 30s it got to the point that the pain was unbearable. I was in 24/7 pain.. my ROM in my bad hip was horrible.. i couldn't even sit up straight.. i was taking 6-8 aleve a DAY...  if I didn't take it I was in so much pain it was horrific.  the pain got so bad that if a doctor had told me the only way to fix my problem was to amputate my leg..I would have considered it.  thats where I was at.  I actually watched a video of Dr. Gross doing a HR and that freaked me the heck out.. I postponed the surgery at lest 6 months just out of fear....


eventually y ou get to the point where the pain is so bad you'll do anything to make it go away.


now in retrospect I wish I had done it FAR sooner.  pain was immediately gone.  i would sit up straight.. walk w/out pain.  i could RUN again!  keep i mind however, I cannot run distances.  some of Dr. Gross patient run marathons..some don't.  for whatever eason, if I run a mile or two, i get discomfort. it's NOT my implant.. it's the muscles or something.. if I do chiropractic work and stretch the crap out of my hip I can run much further w/out pain, but it' takes constant stretching and work.. i ultimately don't like running much so don't do it.. but keep in mind.. if I have to run, I can run FULL SPEED like th wIND for as long as my lungs hold out... I could do a very fast, full speed run across  football field..NO problem.  before surgery, I could not run at all.. I "gimped" as my wife called it.. this embarrassing limping runt sign that looked like what the hunchback of notre dame would do...


anyway...  if you have no choice to get back to normal, go for it.  if you have massive limitations now, HR will fix you up but only you know if you are at that "point" where you want to do it. everyone has a different point.  i had pain for a decade..albeit it wasn't bad until that last year or two..but when it got bad, it was BAD...for me, my qu laity of life has changed a million times over.  i cycle, run, play basketball. I even went snowboarding last winter.    and I did pretty darn well too!  i kept up with my 14 year old son...   i'm 43.  not bad. 


#1 advice - see a surgeon with massive experience. Dr Gross or someone on his level. there are not many doctors on that list. do ti once, and do it right. if you go to a newbie and they screw it up, you'll regret it forever and wind up in a revision.. that is just bad news.


i flew from CA to South Carolina to see Dr. Gross. overall I am 100% happy.. even with my minor running limitation.. overall I can pretty much do anything i want.  even racquetball again! 


good lu ck and feel free to PM me with any other questions.


be safe out there!

[Asalisbu]

thanks for all the advice from everyone.......this website really is something special......I think my wife thinks I am chatting it  up on some dating website as miuch as I am on here just absorbing every post I can...lol

I have xray's out to several of the big hitters to see if I am a candidate. Su, Brooks, and Gross.  I am leaning towards Gross due to location, he takes my insurance, and he ranks up there pretty high in the stud factor for doing this surgery.

I have read so many posts like yours 23109VC that state they suffered unnecessarily for long periods of time and wished they had just done it.   Those post are helping to push me over the hump (if I am a candidate....please let me be a candidate) towards getting this done.  I am playing the game right now of its not so bad.....even got through my workouts without much pain last week....then BAM! the teeth gritting and sucking it up starts.....and I realize this problem will not level out....its only going to get worse.   

Thanks again for the posts and this website.....and prosecute on 23109VC!!

[Pat Walter]

Hi Asalisbu

You are in the right place to get great info from some great people.  Your wife could be right, in a way, you are talking with people who have a "love affair" with hip resurfacing.  Most people look at it as a miracle to get their life back. Also it was mentioned that many people with problems often post more than those that have returned to a happy, pain free life.  Fortunately they are really in the minority, but as the "squeeky wheel gets the oil" - their stories really stand out and can make a person think twice about hip resurfacing.  Just try to keep everything in perspective.  As with any surgery, there are always a few problems so you want to chose a very experienced surgeon who has very, very few problem cases.  You can't beat experience.

Good luck.  I look forward to reading your recovery story.

Pat

[karlos.bell]

  Hi Asalisbu.
What seems to happen over a long period of time is your muscles - tendons adjust to the joint issue and change. That is they compensate for wear - time and alter. I am no doctor but this seems to be what has happened to me and like 23109VC instead of being on pain killers I opted to be on crutches. What ever the way you get through the down period of your hips in life if you leave it too long things alter in the joint to accommodate the issue. That is human nature. It then either takes too long to alter back or it will not as the change is made. I have heard of people getting joint operations then lifting 100 bales of hay a week after. Amazing but maybe stupid. Like 23109VC I get issues running now but realize they are to do with the joint muscles and tendons altering after a joint is worn a certain way. The body has done this to help out the joint but caused another issue.
I am now down to only this issue.
No problem work through the issue and get a result or get an option on the table. Yep I can do full squats now but in my life have never been able to. Good luck and I look forward to your articles as they are cool to read.
Kind Regards K

[Boomer]

Asalisbu - just read your post. Your story is pretty similar to most Hippys. I waited until I had given up every sport I loved, limped constantly and ate ibuprofen like they were M&Ms. I wasted at least two years of my life before finding out about hip resurfacing. I wasn't afraid, I just didn't know there were options to hip replaceKent. Once you pick your surgeon and meet him, most likely you will find that your fear is slowing giving ground to hope that you can regain much of what you lost. I have two Birmingham hips that work just fine and my quality of life is light years better than it was in the years prior to meeting Dr. Rector.

Get your hips fixed and get on with your life. Good luck to you. You are in the best of company whenever you are logged in to this site.

Boomer

[imgetinold]

Asalisbu,


Broken record time.  I am 4 years out (right resurfacing, Dr. Gross), and waited, like everyone else, until I was giving up everything.  I think what sealed the deal was when I was walking through the supermarket and had to sit on an end-cap of beans because my hips hurt so bad.


His team is unbelievable.  You'll wish you did it sooner, no matter when you choose to do it, but you'll need to come to that conclusion. But you can't go wrong with Dr. Gross.


Good luck!


Andy