I'm trying to avoid a hip operation but it's becoming difficult! I just don't want to do it!

Dear Deb

I'm sorry that you are having to consider two hip operations.

I wonder why you are blaming yourself for this situation as surely you cannot have brought it on yourself.

Cheers Richard

Bite the bullet . I am 56 . Been 8 months of a very hard journey but finally reaping the benefits .... no pain. Do it . Very tough but the other alternatives will get worse . Trust me .

Hi Deb

I had my 1st hip replacement at age 35 due to childhood hip disease. I just had my left hip replaced 1 year ago. Im age 64 now. It made all the difference in the world as far as pain goes. After getting over the acute surgical phase of course. Rehab will hwlp get you back to whete you wrtr prior to surgery but wirh the chronic pain. My hip was "bone on bone" & was keeping me awake at night & I could no longer ride my horse in comfort.

You will have to figure out when the time is ridge for you.

Take care

Vickie ?

Deb59, I just had bilateral anterier hip replacement. I am 60 and I had no life anymore. I am 12 days in post surgery. Other than surgery pain right after the replacement it is pretty much gone. I am having cramps and achy muscles in the thighs though. I am walking without the walker and cane but have them available when I go long distances. In three days I have my first visit after surgery and I hope to be able to drive. I am a Real Estate Agent"Realtor". And I have been already doing some work for my clients. All I can say is make sure you get a great surgeon like I did. I look forword to being able to ride my horses and getting back in the barn and working with them. I was told I could get on them in 6wks and really ride in 3 months. 

Deb, I don't see how it could be your fault that the cartilage in your hip joint has worn away. I had my THR at age 67 and I had never lifted a weight in my life! I had an office job for 21 years, then raised my kids and was a substitute teacher. Mostly I walked and hiked for exercise, and I needed to have my hip replaced. You certainly don't have to have one done if you don't want to. But often the pain gets so bad that you must use pain medications, walking aids, or even a wheel chair. It only gets worse over time, never better. You'll know when you are ready.

dear deb, 

Tough and so overwhelming, isn;t it?  

I am with Richard here - why do you blame yourself ? because of the weight-lifting? 

are you in pain? is it osteo-arthiritis?   if so, the bad news is that it will not get better and you might end up being in a wheelchair ...rapid decline in mobility, more pain etc.  grim alternative, I know ...

I am so sorry darling, I really am ... you must be in a shock - 

just come here any time okay ... we are with many, all stages and ages -

lots of strenghts these coming weeks ...

big warm hug

renee

 

If you are like me, osteo arthiritis, family history of same, uncle had double hip replacement in his 80's 6 weeks apart, ahhhhhhh, but to see him do a little dance jump in the air and click his heels together and say never been better in the last 20 years, and when he did this little dance he wasn;t even 12 months snice his double surgery.

He then gave me a hard look, and said you have inherited the family curse, get your hips done sooner rather than later, I was a fool waiting so long, he said.

I saw my Dr when I got home, given pain killers, progressively stronger and stronger, until even then they didn't touch the edges of the pain, bone on bone, ball of hip eaten away with cystic action, also cystic action to pelvic bones.

When I finally saw the ortheopedic surgeon, he growled I should have seen you five years ago, this is a disgusting mess, and booked me for surgery 10 days later as an urgent case, and by the way fire your GP, find one that isn't going to kill you.

15 months after 1st hip replacement, had second, 6 months between seeing surgeon and getting to the top of the waiting list, public list in australia, 2nd hip not as good and first, but after lots of physio and help I have come right.

I did Judo for years, plus hiking and high level camping (until I discovered that, at age 40+ I still loved hiking but a bed at the end of it was preferable ?). I had my hip replaced last November (the 8th to be precise, and it definitely wasn't the surgery that kept me awake in pain that night....... think about it!!! ?). Was I to blame for it? Well according to my GP and surgeon, most of the others around me with the same condition had little exercise and the walk from the room to the beach was a struggle before the arthritis! Were they to blame? No. In the end we choose our lives, and if someone told me that I wouldn't get arthritis if I made diffrent choices, I still wouldn't have changed a thing. And if people want to sit on the sofa watching their gogglebox for life - well it wouldn't be my choice, but fair enough, it's theirs and not my place to judge. Last year I found that gogglebox an immense comfort myself!!!

So Deb, this isn't your fault, and even if it were - so what? It is what it is. And how do you know that choice hasn't been ?good? for something else? It probably was. I bet your heart is great from all that work! We have heart problems in our family - my heart is perfect. And my bone density is way better than it normally would be for my age - and they say that is definitely down to the judo. You win some, you lose some.

And I am also 59.

?Now then, someone like you - lifting weights. Female (I guess from the "Deb" in a mans world? Needing to be able to grit your teeth and get on with things because those weights don't lift themselves? Get away with you! You can take on one (or even two) miserable little hip replacement operations with grit to spare.

?Like you, I have two very bad hips - or had. I have known for a few years that both would need replacing. Perversely, the right one has never hurt, but the X-rays tell the story. The left one, on the other hand - now like you I tried and tried to put it off, although by that time I had had to give up my beloved judo on medical advice. Even I could see that dropping from a height on a solid mat, and flinging my body around (and other peoples bodies around!) on my hips wasn't really a great idea. Never again. Putting it off was a stupid and painful idea! Should have done it at least a year earlier. I'm an idiot. And it wasn't depression or fear - I just thought I was too young. Guess what - I was the second oldest in my weeks group! I was beaten into second place by a lovely 73 year old!

?Now then. You want to be depressed. Oh I can (like a few others around here) outcompete you on reasons to be depressed. Like, last May I was in pain the whole month from my ankle that I had gout in. Only it turns out it wasn't gout and I walked around for 4-5 weeks on a broken ankle. So I was in plaster when I was rushed by ambulance into hospital when my left hip collapsed - the arthritis caused the bone to die and it was literally breaking up inside me. I should have had an immediate replacement, but they couldn't due to the broken ankle on the opposing side not being able to weightbear.

?That was a jolly summer and autumn - excrutiating pain in hip, painful ankle, and on morphine patches to keep me sane.

?I get the hip replaced - brilliant!!! Not a scrap of pain from the hip, not even surgical pain. Works like a dream from the minute I got it. Yay, ready to go now... but oops, because I couldn't walk due to the hip, nobody (including me) had noticed just how bad my ankle was. Not just broken. The tibial tendon had snapped, the foot had deformed and collapsed inwards, and now I need major surgery on the ankle to rebuild it, which cannot be done until the hip is completely healed in case the pressure of weightbearing on that side it too much for the recovering bone. So I still can't walk.

?And I'm not even going to start on the arthritis in my spine...

?So yes, I'm depressed - I try to make space for about an hour of depression every month whether I need it or not!  Seriously.

?Absolutely nobody spends a lifetime in a sport that is HARD WORK without having more about them than to let things beat them down. Yes, it's a shame. Yes, it's pitiful. Yes, c**p happens in life. Now get up and ?deal with it?. Because I know you can and you know you can. I don't know if you'll be able to continue weightlifting. Possibly not a good idea. So apply that grit to something else. I took up yoga when I had to give up judo, to maintain my flexibility and muscle strength. I was the only person in the hospital who could still bend so far as to be able to touch the floor with the palms of my hands despite the arthritis. Before and after! But depression definitely never gets you anywhere. Life isn't over. It's a new chapter. So get writing it.... and get those hip muscles nice and supple and strong (which will require something a bit more varied that lifting weights) because the more you do, the better your chances of a great surgery and a positive outcome.