What’s guarding you from breaking the chains of hip pain?

• April 13, 2020
• teamhri

Hip replacement surgery has gotten so safe, effective, and easy it really a great gift. Yet many people are oppressed by pain in the hip from severe arthritis every day. It’s like having a vicious little dog biting every time you move. But so many of them are not doing anything about it! What’s your excuse for not having the hip replacement surgery you need? Here are some doozies we’ve heard over the years.

I’m too young. This actually comes from a real place. But sorry, it’s no longer true. Back in the day hip replacement components were only expected to last around 10 years. As a result, many patients in their fifties and sixties were told to come back when they couldn’t walk anymore. Today’s ceramic ball heads and titanium sockets with polyethylene plastic liners are different. They’re built to last. And we can hope and expect them to last as long as you.

Surgery hurts, and the recovery is too much for me. This was also true. In the past. Legacy hip replacement surgeons performed the posterior approach with six to twelve months of recovery and a great deal of pain. Today’s surgeons are trained and have experience in minimally invasive approaches like the anterior and direct superior. Recovery is much quicker. You can expect to walk a few hours after surgery, go for a trek outside without a walker in five to seven days, and sit down at your office job in one to two weeks. Most of our patients don’t even need to take narcotics after surgery.

You can die. Nope. Well, someday we all will die, but if you follow our advice, almost certainly not from hip replacement surgery. When this surgery was done in a hospital the nurses pumped you up with morphine so much you didn’t get out of bed for a day or two after the procedure. If blood clots formed in your legs from not moving, they could embolize to your lungs and kill you. Today you walk an hour or two after surgery to get out of the Ambulatory Surgery Center. There’s not time for blood clots to form. And you’re not in the hospital, so you can’t get a hospital acquired infection, or fall victim to a hospital error.
Every journey begins with the first step. Adventures await. But first, you need to get rid of that severely arthritic hip. You deserve to be pain free. Don’t let guardians — like a snarling little dog — prevent you from enjoying the best years of your life without hip pain.