New hip anybody?

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Not me but my wife has had both hips replaced. The best advice she can give you is that the surgeon will give you a bunch of exercises to do before the operation. DO them religously as they will strengthen your muscles & increase muscle tone. This will increase recovery time post op by a huge amount. My wife was up out of bed the day after the op. & made a first class recovery.
A lady who she knows who had the same op the next day did not do the exercises & her recovery took far longer.
 
I know a couple of people who have had them done and watched one being done on Tv, would not advise you to watch until afterwards but these days it is almost just like going to the dentist but a lot cheaper. I find it odd that they don't knock you out completely, I would want to be knocked out and wake up all done, see, hear & feel nought.
 
Oh no. Jacob peruses the other place.
Well you never know - could miss something interesting.
Hasn't happened so far except for geriatric health problems. I hope somebody is looking after them.
 
Best of luck with it Jacob, big op but the results are fantastic. 10 years ago we had a fitter who really struggled with dodgy hips, had the op and he was like a new man.
Sounds like your physically fit, which will help with recovery.
Any hint of infection call GP immediately, father in law got infection in bionic knee and messed up recovery big time.
 
I was in a ward with several people having hip and knee ops, they seem to have it down to an absolute art, I couldn't get over how quickly people were going home.
 
Had to have one of mine done at a relatively young age, early forties, legacy of a motorbike accident as a teenager !

Twenty years on and still going well, touch wood ! Transformed daily life for me, just the rest of me is struggling to keep up now ! 😂😂
 
my mother had hers done a couple of years ago, worst part of it is the injections to prevent blood clots that you have to stab yourself with daily right in to the stomach area, and it was tough getting up for a good few weeks, doing the excercises post op are a must, makes a big difference.
 
Not a new hip but a new knee. Weird seeing my foot at an angle that didn't look right over the small sheet they put up to stop me seeing, then they put up a BIG sheet up and I started to get worried! All was okay and I was up later in the day walking on crutches. Sent home 3 days later with exercises to do and did them religiously. 5 weeks later walked back in to see the surgeon for a review and he could tell that I'd done the exercises. Handed my crutches back to physiotherapy and haven't looked back. It was just great to walk without pain, and my dogs appreciated it as well, they got far longer walks.
Whatever you have done, please do the exercises, you won't regret it. HTH.
 
Re anasthetics, my wife had her first hip replacement under a general anasthetic, she does not take anasthetics well & was quite poorly for the following couple of days. Second time she had an epidural with sedation & her recovery time was far quicker. 5 years & three years on respectively her hips are as good as new.
 
I had my right hip done at 59. I was struggling to walk on uneven suface, cock my leg over the bike, had to throw knee out at top of the stroke etc. My anaethetist recommended being totally out (still with epidural but just under with sedation or general not sure of the specifics) and I was happy to go with that. I remember waking up and asking the nurse if she was an Angel, she laughed and said "definitely not", I said "I know I'm back in the right place then" :). It was stiff and sore for a while and for the last few years has been brilliant, The odd thing is my foot is now straight which always stuck out since being a child. Guess that's why it failed early. The regained mobility is just fantastic.
Oh and I had pills for the anticlot no injections.
 
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50% of men who have the epidural have difficulty passing urine during the early hours of recovery. A catheter will prevent any discomfort, inserted post anaesthetic, as I know from personal experience - one hip without, the second with.
 
From experience... 3 hip ops myself after breaking it aged 35 and my wife 2 replacement hips at 40... We had general anaesthetic each time. I have no idea why you wouldn't have that. The op is pretty brutal (they start by dislocating your hip and then throw the leg out at an unnatural angle to get at the joint I believe). Just be careful of the painkillers they give you afterwards. Anything with codeine is likely to block you up and trying to pass something with a major injury in the hip area is beyond agonising. The surgeon told my wife that how you use your new hip is a bit like running a car engine - you can run on it and abuse it any way you like, but it is going to wear out quicker if you do. Likewise, the heavier you are, the quicker it will wear out. Then you have to be careful with certain movements (such as reaching down to the side to put on shoes and turning your knee in) as some of those are likely to dislocate the new hip which is very bad news. However, all pain disappears and you can get back to everyday life... I know people that sail dinghies with replacement hips so you can be pretty flexible afterwards. Good luck, I am sure you will do just fine!
 
Thanks for replies - very re-assuring - I'm looking forward to it now!
 
Thanks for replies - very re-assuring - I'm looking forward to it now!
Hi Jacob, I had mine done aged 55, I didn't realise it was my hip that needed fixing, despite friends saying I was limping for the previous 10 years, I thought it was my back.
I can talk you through the early stages from my experience (good) and that of my mother (no so good) , here are the first 4 or so:

1. GET ON THE LIST FOR THE OP ASAP: Get on a list to get it done asap, there is so much pressure on NHS etc that you may have to wait and every day waiting your leg muscles waste away. Typical waiting time is 1yr to 18months My bad leg was half the size of the good one and it tool about 18 months to get it to full strength again. I thought I was ok limping along, only bad thing was the lack of sleep. But with hind sight seeing the x-rays I should have had it done years before.

You have to constantly nag the NHS and highlight you are in great pain. There is a huge waiting list. I was too polite and the surgeon told me to wait as I was young (he did his best to put me off the op, by talking up the number of dislocations, reversions, and deaths on the operating theatre (ca 1% or less). COVID is making matters worse.

2. Do the exercises that Keith66 indicates - you will find your leg muscles waste away which makes everything take longer. Also lose some weight, if you can, as that has a big bearing pain and op successes etc. I was a lot lighter than my boss, so was in much less pain than him - downside was i had to wait a lot longer for the op. Try to do exercises that don't jolt the hip. So running is not good. Swimming is etc. I think cycling is, but I didn't have the strength to get on a bike. If found I had to walk with ski sticks with the family. The more you do that the longer you can wait.

3. Once you have a surgeon (who you trust) lined up - go with his/her recommendations - there is a lot out their on the type of hip, (ceramic, steel etc), type of anaesthetic. But statistics show that the most success is when a surgeon sticks to their way of doing things, if you persuade them to do it your way or differently, things can go wrong. If you really don't like the proposal from the surgeon, then find a different one. (that may mean going privately or waiting longer). They will ask for your preferences within their envelope, but they will be experienced in doing things a certain way. Try to find a surgeon who just does hips. The more they specialise in hips the better. Generalists who do hips, Knees, and other ops are ok but the specialist hip folk have an edge - you may not have that choice.

4. That's its for now, I'm sure you will have more questions. Worth saying it is one of the operations with the highest benefits, hips and cataracts give an immediate/ full recovery in most patients. Simply amazing. There is a lot about pre and post operative things to do, but that can wait.

Final cautionary comment. There is a down side you may have to reluctantly consider. If the waiting list is so long that you get chair of bed bound, you may have to bite the bullet and pay to go privately. From how you described things, you are still quite mobile so this is a long way off. But the waiting lists at the moment are a lottery as to the state of your local NHS system. I was ok, I waited about 18 months for my op from first diagnosis to operation I probably had another 12 months in me before the bone started to chip badly.
My mum on the other hand would have died is we did not pay to get her hip replaced last year. Aged 86, she had waited too long, she was fit rushing about person and coped with her arthritis in her feet, hands etc, but she endured the pain in her hip for too long until suddenly she could not walk or sleep - months of near zero sleep and had to move into a separate room as her screams woke my dad. With Covid, there were just no operations happening. She would have died if she waited any longer. As it was, we later found she had a blood clot that developed while awaiting for the operation. Its was not cheap, it cost my brother and I about £7k. We also had no idea how to go about it. But all the healthcare staff were wonderful, both GPs/NHS and the private ones (actaully the same people??) Politically - we told ourselves that this allowed someone to go up the waiting list? Not an easy choice but it may come to that eventually. It all depends if you can keep moving. Once you get chair or bed bound the risk of thrombosis rises. So best to get on the list right away to avoid complications later. As I and others have said, it is a wonder operation.
I give you this cautionary message now, as although it does not seem a life threatening condition, it can become so and you may have to start to think of desperate measures.
Good luck Tom
 
My daughter works in the local hospital... 2 things:

1. Covid is causing less delays for some ops now because a) a lot of people are afraid of being admitted and b) morbidly, a lot of the people who would have had hip ops have died from covid.
2. £7k for the hip op is very cheap. Bupa does a £10k all in package - surgery, physio, stays in hospital, everything...
 

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