New Hip.

[plugboots]

Thanks!
Before:

After:

[Spooky]

Nice. Can see why you needed it.

[plugboots]

First time flying since surgery. “Got any metal?”
Gotta go through the full scan thing now.

[Spooky]

First time flying since surgery. “Got any metal?”
Gotta go through the full scan thing now.

Yeah that's one minor annoyance. Never been patted down so much in my life.

[Peruvian]

First time flying since surgery. “Got any metal?”
Gotta go through the full scan thing now.

I had that flying to FLA in Dec. No big deal.

I can’t believe how much better I feel since getting my new hip. My knee, low back, and even my neck feels better. I’m able to stretch more and with more ROM and I honestly can’t believe how I skied and biker with such pain and limitations the last several years.

Fully back to XC and BC skiing within 10 weeks and other than being blown away by the lack of pain, I haven’t had any issues.

[goldenboy]

^^ Jealous.

Everyone says it's such a great surgery but at 8 months I'm maybe 80% back and wish I hadn't done it. I barely even enjoy skiing anymore, I ski like shit now.

[plugboots]

Dude. Dang. Any answers or help from the doc?

I’m nine weeks out today and I feel like I’m getting small improvements every day. I’ve been cross country skiing five times. I’ll probably go again today, (classic). I’m just trying to be gentle, but I think at three months, I’ll probably be able to ski.

[goldenboy]

The doc is trying. It doesn't help that he's now 4+ hours away in the winter. We all thought it was psoas tendonitis (which FWIW occurs in 40% of THR's), but a cortisone shot in early Dec didn't do anything.

His next step is to do a 3 phase bone scan to rule out anything weird going on with the way the bone is attaching to the stem. But I'm pretty reluctant to do that, I feel like there's a 99.9% chance that the end result of that is me being $800 poorer just to get an email that says everything looks good. So I'm at a loss. Maybe it's time for a 2nd opinion. PT thinks it will magically get better, somehow, someway, around 12-18 months.

Frustrating as hell since I don't have any real game plan and I've been doing everything I possibly can on my end.

[plugboots]

Efff.
That area where the iliacus and the psoas come into my hip has been the area that’s the slowest to come around, and hurt the most after surgery. Classic skiing is part of my rehab, but pulling the leg forward uses that area and definitely it hurts and is tight after.
Good luck.

[Peruvian]

I really sorry to hear, gb. I’m sure you are doing all the glute strengthening, etc. but it sounds like it’s beyond that at this point. I just got my portion of the hospital bill and fully understand you weighing the cost factor. Health insurance in this country is total and complete bullshit.

The only issue I have had is my new hip had made my leg noticeably longer (15mm or so). I’m sure it’s mostly because my other hip is so damaged and when it gets done the legs will be the same length.

[jerlane]

I assume they’ve done labs to rule out infection?


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[plugboots]

Kind of a weird sideline to my PT is my guy is basically trying to fix my posture and all this other stuff so that my hips are more aligned. Basically he wants me to get a bigger ass.

[goldenboy]

Reply with quote still doesn't work, but jerlane- was your comment directed at me? If so, yes, I've gotten several blood tests looking for infection but everything looks good.

plugboots, definitely not surprised that your PT would be working on alignment. Most of us with hip problems have likely been using our bodies all wrong for a long time.

[priapism]

2 months since the last update--how are peoples recoveries going now?

I met with Edwin Su a month ago and he gave me the OK for resurfacing. He does resurfacings on a lot of pro athletes, and I got the impression he knew Id done my research and his reputation was before him.

I didnt come out of it completely sold on it though. Im getting the hunch that there IS a reason why most surgeons wont do it. And benefiting from 20 more years of R&D that the birmingham hip has missed out on is pretty significant...implant longevity and durability patients and surgeons claim is better with BHR doesnt seem to apply with the newest THRs with new polys and larger ceramic heads. And I know patients with problems are disproportionately represented online, but with so few resurfacings done there still seem to be a lot of people talking about their resurfacing revisions compared to THR.

I guess learning that Julia Mancuso got a THR and Vonn getting a podium on a knee replacement is making me more comfortable with the traditional prosthetics. Plus the people still running ultras on them. I bet if pro athletes got THRs and were still advised to return to sport theyd have similar outcomes (minus the increased femur impact risk)

Meeting an anterior THR surgeon next week. Hes extremely high volume and does younger patients too. Im feeling impatient and want my mobility back, its taking long enough.

[plugboots]

Vonn’s is absolutely not a TKR. Pic won’t post right now, but only half is replaced, (look up the x-ray).
I did the re-surface, I have no idea if it was the right decision, but it feels like the right decision. I like leaving as much bone as possible. I started classic skiing at 2 months, skate skied just after that, I did 6 or so BC runs starting at 3 months, just skied 6 days straight lift serviced just under 5 months. Frozen chicken/coral reef hurts, but otherwise, next year if my knee works I’ll be fine.

[goldenboy]

Priapism, sorry about the slow response with our janky forums. I started doing better about a month ago, which was about 9 months post op. I'm not sure what changed. I booteed up a local peak and that seemed to help, but it might have just been time or that the skiing got slightly softer/better in March. Not that skiing ever seemed to make it worse, taking days off seemed to make it hurt just as much. I'm still not totally sold on the surgery and wish I had waited for as long as I could possibly stand it. I did take my sled for a ski tour today and noticed that the snowmobile didn't hurt- and that was definitely an activity that was really hard pre surgery, so that's good.

I sometimes wonder if I should have tried to do a resurfacing, but I only would have considered that if I could do ceramic instead of metal, but not many doctors do that in the US.

PS, there is a little chute called priapism in CB, right between Body Bag and Dead Bob's. You should probably ski it some day.

[plugboots]

Well, that’s better goldenboy, I was wondering how you were doing. I’m basically 95% of where I was before on a bike now. I mean it’s hard to remember that the first 15 to 20 minutes of any bike ride was just crazy pain.

[Full Trucker]

@goldenboy

So stoked to hear/read that you're doing better, goddamn did you ever have a rough go. I'll be honest, reading your story had me nervous as hell to get mine done, but I'm glad as shit I did. You having a breakthough helped to ease my anxiety.

So I'm a week and a day out from total hip replacement and doing well. Ditched both the oxycodone and the cane after a couple days. Walking like 2-ish miles a day and some days 3-5, strength and mobility seem to be returning fast at first but now plateauing a bit. All the pain I have is around the incision site and the leg muscles, near as I can tell the joint pain I had is gone. And it feels smooth, not notchy and shitty like it did before. I've got some wobbles / instability when I do certain movements and my hips shift to the side, but I think that's likely just muscle and soft tissue weakness or all that shit being stretched out from the procedure. I keep telling myself I'm gonna set up the gravel bike on the trainer this week, but that shit is FUCKING AWFUL and I also feel like I'm days out from just being stable enough to go for a road ride. Walking dogs, mowing the lawn, holding back from rage posting on SkiTalk are sorta keeping me sane. Motion is lotion, bitches.

My only real issue is that I lost my voice for a day or two, and now it's raspy as fuck and I have a slight cough. We're not sure what caused that, our suspicion is something with the propofol they used for anesthesia. I wasn't intubated, but I was coughing up lung butter on the table so they had to use suction to get that under control. Currently waiting on a call back from the surgeon to see what he thinks.

[Peruvian]

I'm 7 mos. post surgery and it continues to feel great. Good enough that I have considered getting the other side done well in advance of the amount of pain I experienced on the first one.

[plugboots]

I'm 7 mos. post surgery and it continues to feel great. Good enough that I have considered getting the other side done well in advance of the amount of pain I experienced on the first one.

I had my right done, and now the other day I felt just a little pain in my left…you know…and I was like daaaaaaang

[plugboots]

@goldenboy

So stoked to hear/read that you're doing better, goddamn did you ever have a rough go. I'll be honest, reading your story had me nervous as hell to get mine done, but I'm glad as shit I did. You having a breakthough helped to ease my anxiety.

So I'm a week and a day out from total hip replacement and doing well. Ditched both the oxycodone and the cane after a couple days. Walking like 2-ish miles a day and some days 3-5, strength and mobility seem to be returning fast at first but now plateauing a bit. All the pain I have is around the incision site and the leg muscles, near as I can tell the joint pain I had is gone. And it feels smooth, not notchy and shitty like it did before. I've got some wobbles / instability when I do certain movements and my hips shift to the side, but I think that's likely just muscle and soft tissue weakness or all that shit being stretched out from the procedure. I keep telling myself I'm gonna set up the gravel bike on the trainer this week, but that shit is FUCKING AWFUL and I also feel like I'm days out from just being stable enough to go for a road ride. Walking dogs, mowing the lawn, holding back from rage posting on SkiTalk are sorta keeping me sane. Motion is lotion, bitches.

My only real issue is that I lost my voice for a day or two, and now it's raspy as fuck and I have a slight cough. We're not sure what caused that, our suspicion is something with the propofol they used for anesthesia. I wasn't intubated, but I was coughing up lung butter on the table so they had to use suction to get that under control. Currently waiting on a call back from the surgeon to see what he thinks.

Do the rollers.
Now.
I had some pretty hard workouts early on, 3 1/2 to 4 months in, and I was a little stiff or kind of creaky, so I text my physical therapist, and I’m hoping he’s gonna say “Oh, lay on the couch, ice it, elevate, watch basketball”. Instead he texts, “the best thing for it is to get on your trainer”.
I was like…fuck.
Also, he’s absolutely right. I’ve been Backcountry skiing pretty almost every day for the last 15 or so days and I’ll do 20 minutes on the rollers in the evening, and it makes a big difference.