Need some encouragement! :-)

When it was first suggested by my rheumatology consultant that I needed hip replacements I was still managing to gert around quite well despite the pain. By the time I got the first operation, 10 months later, I was hardly able to walk even had to go into hospital in a wheelchair. I am currently waiting for a date for the second hip replacement.

If you need the operation, go for it as soon as you can as recovery will be quicker and so will your quality of life.

Hey Mark

At the risk of repeating everyone else, it is the right thing to do.

But don't take our word for it, I am pretty certain the surgeon would not accept preforming this surgery lightly - after all, it is not a cosmetic procedure.

As has been mentioned before, the fitter you are before the op, the quicker you should recover.

Finally, I don't think the squash had much to do with it. I just think we are the special ones :-)

Michael  

Hi Mark

Welcome to the forum - 

I do think you are doing the right thing, because there is only one thing we can be sure your hip will just get worse and worse until you are not able to walk or do anything at all, and by leaving it so long your muscles and ability to recover quickly will disapear as well. 

The fitter you are when you have this operation, the better your recovery will be.

Your hip replacement is inevitable, there is nothing else that can be done to repair this, and if like me you want to have a full and active life then getting your hip replaced is the best thing to do.

There are lots of hippies that are not in severe pain, but need a replacement anyway, it affects everyone differently, but if it is limiting your life and will continue to, then it is will definitely be worth while.

I am forty and sports mad too! I am cycling again (I am three months) I started cycling again at six weeks, so you won't have long to wait to get back into things. I am walking for miles and definitely really happy with the results. So happy that I am running around again and fell over earlier! The journey has its ups and downs but it will be a permanent fix. 

I am looking forward to riding horses again towards the end of the year, and swimming and doing everything I loved before this problem started!

So I would say definitely go for it! We are all here if you need any support or advice, or you have questions. This is a great forum it is really is.

 

Hi Mark when I dropped off and became a pavement shuffler in Jan/Feb last year after getting worse weekly with, as you say bearable pain, it was so bad I had to take timme off of work as I could hardly walk from where I was parking my car to the work, and the operation fell in the middle of that leave, so if you have the Xray proof and can go ahead with it then do it before too much muscle atrophy occurs, I was bad at 52, and shockingly painful at 53, and could not walk properly six months after I was 54, so the pain grew and grew...and the amount of painkillers must have effected my insides too so, dodge all that and get it done earlier if you can as it was terrible for me, but remember you can be cancelled and setback at any time even on the day of the operation, so just get going and stop putting it off....It is inevitable anyway....

Hi Mark

I was in the position that you are now . My pain was quite mild

so long as I didn't do anything for more than 10 minutes. My pain

free world had shrunk . The first thing I would look for when I went

out were places to sit down ! So I took the plunge and I am 8 weeks

post op . I won't lie , it's been hard work and I have found muscles

in places I never knew I had but I know my world will open up

again . I knew that if I didn't have the op my world would have got

smaller and smaller and more and more painful.

Hope this helps

All the best

Hilary

Mark, I was in your position. I had bad range of motion, and had some pain on walking, used trekking poles whenever I had to walk any distance. Finally had an x-raty of that hip and my orthopedist was shocked that I hadn't had a replacement yet, since I was bone-on-bone. I decided not to have surgery at that time. A month later I had an episode of the horrible grinding bone-on-bone pain that others here have described and some had for years. It was awful! I was using my poles all the time when upright and mostly sitting for the two days I had it. I went to the doctor and scheduled surgery. No way did I want any more of that.

With all surgeries, of course, there are risks and some people have complications, which I am sure you are familiar with, as your preparation for surgery should have given you a list of them, and we must all sign off that we are aware of them. Rarely are any complications as awful as that grinding pain. We all must make an informed decision about whether to have surgery or not. If you don't have it now, you can always have it later, when pain does become an issue!

I essentially had the same symtoms as you - the agony of putting socks on, tying shoe, clipping toe nails, etc. It really hurt climbing and walking up inclined surfaces and it was not improving. Took a lot of Naproxin to get through the day.  I finally bit the bullet and had TLHR completed 2 weeks ago today. I turn 50 next week. It has ben remarkable that the pain went away and am starting to regain that loss of motion OA caused.  As far as squash or cycling - not sure if that contributed or not. My surgeon passed that it was just the genes I carry and it was inevitable. seems to rn in the male side of my father's family as well.  Not sure where you are located, but in the US, I decided to do it in March as I would have realatively decent weather to recuperate.  I had the anterior approach and having been in decent shape prior to surgery the recovery has been much faster than I hoped. Sunday passed I walked a mile unaided and will look to lenghten that distnce today. QOL from 50-70 will be enhanced as opposed to holding out much longer.  I too was apprehensive as the surgery approached but in hindsight it was worth it.  Good luck and hope you join the Hippie Ranks. All the best, Mike