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Fractured Trochanter

Posted , 10 users are following.

Notabene
Notabene

Well, quelle surprise.  After 2.1/2 years of pain, my xrays have revealed that the greater trochanter sustained a type 3 fracture during surgery.  This happens in 3% of surgeries, with 2% of those leaving the patient with intractable pain.  It is very difficult to correct (the broken piece being more than 2cm).  That has been poking into my soft tissue and I still cannot lie on operated side.  Further, the hospital has photoshopped the immediate post op xray.  they have shaded out the broken piece, and cropped the edges of the trochanter.  They never responded to my calls, never saw surgeon after op; he walked past my bed several times to other patients.  That op will go down on his numbers, yet it was NOT a good result.  I have to see a private surgeon re the other side who will assess whether the NHS op needs to be revised.  Sometimes apparently they use a claw to re-attach the bone.  In my case, the broken piece has been laying down new bone.  So you can imagine the pain grows exponentially with the size.  I would have preferred to lose a limb than go through the agony of that surgery and the (non) recovery.    I am getting quite unwell with the prospect of a new surgery on the other side, but at least the private surgeon has done 3,000.  My previous was around 80,  Check the surgeon's numbers I urge you.  You don't want someone practising on you.  My GP said they are so protected that you cannot do anything about a bad result.  They have insured the surgeons who do a poor job are untouchable.  I was operated on in a rush, last thing on a Friday afternoon.  My BMI was underweight, so I came out a skeleton at the most crucial time for healing.  I will be seeing my MP about the doctored xray and various other blatant unethical events  which beset me during and after the ordeal...

3 likes, 16 replies

16 Replies

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  • AnnieK
    AnnieK Notabene

    Posted

    The behavior by that OS and the hospital is unconscionable. Yes, we all understand that complications can and do happen, but for them to cover it up like that and to pretend like it didn't happen and not give you important information about the results on purpose is unthinkable! So sorry you have gone through this, Notabene. Good that you are being assessed by another surgeon about surgery to correct the problem, in addition to doing the other side. All the best to you as you talk with your MP as well.
  • CelsB
    CelsB Notabene

    Posted

    Hi Notabene,

    What has happened to you is dreadful, and the cover-up makes it all even worse.  I can understand your anger and I am truly sorry for all the pain you have been through.  I hope the experienced surgeon you are now seeing can sort things out for you, and that anyone found practising unethically is dealt with in an appropriate manner.

    I am concerned though,  that not everyone can have a surgeon with many years experience behind them.  How can surgeons gain experience except by performing operations, presumably under the guidance and supervision of someone more experienced?  My surgeon had less than 80 hip replacements under his belt but I do not consider that I was being practised on.  If I had thought that I would never have gone ahead.  I'm sure even experienced surgeons makes mistakes - it's the concealment that is the real injustice.

    Please let us know how you get on.

    Cels xxx

  • josh55
    josh55 Notabene

    Posted

    Wow, sounds like your having quite an ordeal, Im in wisconsin USA and so we dont have

    Government docs ( private side versus Government side) I think Im glad for this! I have been able to tell from other posts that

    im not faced with some of the challenges that other are on thiis forum. First is that there were quite a few that wanted to do the surgery.

    They were kind of clamoring over each other for the job at about 6 different places. so I could choose the when and where.Blessing to you and I hope you have some rescource like an advocate that can help you

  • renee01952
    renee01952 Notabene

    Posted

    Dear Notabene, 

    That is incredible - I cannot believe that you cannot take this surgeon and his team to court .. Where and when did they photoshop your x-ray? How many people are involved in this ?  

    Shaking my head in disbelief ...

    big warm hug

    renee

    • Notabene
      Notabene renee01952

      Posted

       Thanks Renée...  Was my own doctor said I should drop all this and get a life because once the surgeon makes a mistake all doors are closed and there is not a lawyer in England who will take on the NHS because there are more lawyers in the back rooms of our hospitals than there are surgeons. Crois-moi.   I've been sat with a consultant who runs to and from legal up and down the corridor, got his instructions and dictated his letter !! Pathetic if it weren't so serious!! Like I told him the Hippocratic oath has become the hypocritic oath.  I actually wrote to a surgeon and asked him how he was able to sleep at night when in fact there is only the truth wasn't he ashamed.  At least you can get it off your chest that way if you can't see them in court !! O dear I must go and get that life, crippled or not!  Trying to see the funny side.  NB

       

  • Midge2
    Midge2 Notabene

    Edited

    How in the world did the hospital photoshop an X-ray?  If they photoshopped the X-ray,  by hiding or cropping off the trochanter (by the way, you have two trochanter so -- the greater and the lesser, so which one got fractured?) how did you find that out?  I just joined this forum and have not read many replies or problems, so please forgive me when I ask you what type of surgery you had which started all of this?  Do you live in the USA bcqause w
    • Notabene
      Notabene Midge2

      Posted

      THR October 2013.   The x-ray was put onto a CD and - I've never seen it before-  Kodak software which comes with a great big bundle of photo shop possibilities  and permutations. It was the greater trochanter tip that was actually broken off. I was not in the least surprised when I got my own xray because the pain was indescribable.  This type of break/fracture doesn't usually cause problems unless it is greater than 2 cm when it's considered a type 3 and my piece of bone is way above 2 cm. I will ask the new surgeon to calculate size...NB
  • eileen64__UK
    eileen64__UK Notabene

    Posted

    Hi Notabene

    That sounds dreadful......where do you live.

    I'm in the UK and have a fractured greater trochanter bone!!!

    More than 2 years ago I had my second hip replacement....my fracture didnt happen during surgery.

    4 weeks post op I was doing some NHS exercises and it cracked and that was it....I've been on crutches since that [more than 2 years now] but its the pain that is agony. Nothing the consultant or the GP can do seem to help.

    I have seen the X Rays........my first THR apparently I had fractured the greater trochanter during surgery. On the X Ray it looks like a little hair line crack and caused no problems but this one will never heal

    It was on my notes that I had osteopinia so I think they should have advised me what exercises not to do or be careful about. Nothing was said, just handed abook with exercises to do after leaving hospital.

    When I got out I decided that I would check the osteopinia with the GP.....she sent me for a DEXA scan.....GUESS WHAT?? it was no long osteopinia, it was osteoporosis so that is what is being  blamed for the fracture

    Good Luck

    Hileena

    • AnnieK
      AnnieK eileen64__UK

      Posted

      Eileen, so sorry for this situation of yours. How disappointing and painful. I am 68 and had a DEXA scan after my THR. I was just into the beginnings of osteopenia at the neck of my non-THR femur, so not too much problem there. But I was surprised that they didn't require this pre-THR, or that the orthopedists don't seem to be too interested in the results. Wouldn't that be a very important thing to know, especially for us older women? I'm with you, that your doctors should have taken note, and even ordered another DEXA pre-surgery for you, and that perhaps that knowledge could have prevented this permanent disability.
    • Notabene
      Notabene eileen64__UK

      Posted

       Eileen I'm in the UK... Mine is not so much a fracture it's a break so the separate piece of bone is floating and it's actually growing and laying down new bone so the pain is increasing as the size of the chip grows.  I think now the NHS is confronted with so much over expenditure things that we would take for granted like testing for osteoporosis by bone density testing etc is just going to get overlooked. I just ask my doctor for a bone density scan or an x-ray as I need; I think we have to be very proactive  as  they are all suffering budget cuts so they're not going to offer anything... NB
    • Notabene
      Notabene AnnieK

      Posted

       Annie my bone density was very good before this surgery and in fact my bones are in very good shape so it's all the more astonishing to see how he could actually make such A car crash of my hip.  Stupidly I allowed myself to go to surgery late on Friday afternoon and I think he was waiting to get back to his own country. Staff nurse told me he had gone back but I then saw him walk past my bed several times - never came to see me - visiting other patients  and blatantly avoiding me. Boy did they want me out of that bed asap.  And from that moment on they were silent never returning one of my half dozen calls not even telling me what they had implanted. I had to get that info from  the National joint registry and found out that theyd implanted something different to the prosthesis shown me at pre surgery appointment. (Got metal ball when I'd been told ceramic.  Note, metal much cheaper).    I do alright physically apart from walking longer distances but I'm on permanent painkillers which I hate because they destroy my appetite and I'm already too slim..   Hindsight sure is 50-50 ...Good luck with everything.

      NB

    • AnnieK
      AnnieK Notabene

      Posted

      NB, my blood pressure goes up thinking about how they treated you. All just so wrong! It's so difficult to know whether or not the surgeon you have is a good one, or a good person, or not!

      I am very unhappy with the surgeon who did my THR in July 2015. He refused to consider that my continuing inability to walk without a severe limp had anythng to do with torn gluteal tendons. He also said that if they were torn at all, that surgery is never done to repair such tears. All wrong, as I went to a different practice and am seeing different orthopedic surgeons, who diagnosed my gluteal tears (just as I had suspected) and are doing surgery to repair them, plus they will check all around in my hip/thigh to see what else might be wrong. I have such pain and disability, far worse than before my THR. The new surgery for me is in one month, and I can't wait! I have a chance to be fixed up and normal again.

      Hope you can get some resolution and recovery, Notabene!

  • Notabene
    Notabene

    Posted

     Many thanks to all of you who made a comment on my posting. I had no notifications that I had any replies.  I am still in a bit of shock as to the photo- shopping of the post surgery x-ray. It  was done with Kodak software.  I think the hospital must've been unaware that I got separate x-rays done myself twice in 2014 and there is no way that a piece of bone more than 2 cm would've just appeared there! The greater trochanter itself is exactly the same shape in fact it's even smaller on the post surgical hospital x-ray because the image has been cleaned up (very amateur and obvious ... They must think I'm a real bimbo) So no way did this happen post surgery. I needed pethadine and I said at the time I would have chosen  wheelchair over that level of pain.  A duty dr said "oh the surgeon usually tells us if anything goes wrong!!" You cannot be serious - as if.   Mine is a textbook case From an article published by a prestigious Norwegian university;  the diagrams they give of the Types 1, 2, and 3 fractures of the greater trochanter are what prompted me to do further research, and this only because I'm still on painkillers unable to lie on that side.  There is more proof of cover up:  when at a private appt with that surgeon's colleague same hospital (£180 only to tell me he did NOT offer HA injections which is the only reason I was seeing him - to put off as long as poss the other side) he said "oh and I should stop having X-rays done!" Quelle surprise again....I wonder why...  Of course the hostility may have been because I had to cancel my surgery three times previously which would have annoyed them.  Perhaps what they don't know is that my partner had been admitted to A&E three times during that year and discharged with a gastric band, ha ha !  He did not need one of those! In fact no one had looked at his x-ray until his fourth admission to intensive care when they admitted they'd not seen the massive tumour. He then had most of his transverse colon removed.  Needless to say it was the same hospital where I was treated that didn't even follow up his radiology...hence by the time I went like a lamb to slaughter, I was in bad shape anyway. It was the Annus horribilis.  I'll post again following new surgeon comments next week. Thanks for all support on here..NB
    • AnnieK
      AnnieK Notabene

      Posted

      Look forward to hearing what the new surgeon says! Goodness, you and your partner had such horrendous luck last year. May 2016 be much better for you both!
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