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THR last Tuesday

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helen09386
helen09386

At home and leg swollen twice size, but i guess thats normal.  Cant sleep because of strange problem. I have normal post op pain, but also it feels like someone is stretching my leg when i lie down, to full capacity and beyond.  It is really uncomfortable. Did not  have this on hospital bed but now in normal bed i just cant straighten leg without this awful pulling and stretching.. Also keep having weird spasms when going to drop off to sleep that are excruitiating, feels like leg coming all out of place.  Anyone had or understand what all this is please.

1 like, 23 replies

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  • patricis
    patricis helen09386

    Posted

    Helen, I feel for you and these unexpected issues, hopefully someone here will be able to let you know if they had the same pain and how they dealt with it and when it went away....I go in next Tuesday, so like you I"m scared not only for the op but for the unknown when you get back home...keep on this site, for there is so many "hippies' that have gone through what you are and will be able to offer support and fellowship
  • judiwoo
    judiwoo helen09386

    Posted

    I'm now 2 weeks post op and had exactly the same sensation for the first week home to the point of me thinking that I had dislocated my new joint!!  I rang my GP and she said it was sometimes normal after THR because of the muscles being cut and damaged.   I know that's not a very technical explanation and somebody may give a better explanation on here.  They have more or less stopped now and I'm managing a whole 4 hours sleep now - It's alll getting easier as the weeks pass smile 
    • patricis
      patricis judiwoo

      Posted

      "4 HOURS", hokey smokey....it's like having a newborn in the house all over again!  I'm assuming this is even with pain killers (sleeping pills)..
  • jeanp
    jeanp helen09386

    Posted

    Hi Helen,

    Sorry you are having problems, hope it resolves itself soon. Our bodies always seem to give us new things to think about/worry over, don't they?

    Have you tried putting shallow pillow under your knees at night? I find this more comfortable even now several years after THR, probably because I am used to it.

  • Sredni393
    Sredni393 helen09386

    Posted

    It may be that like me, all the swelling deep in the tissue means that the leg is much longer. This will improve I promise you. Mine was inches longer but today 9 months later about equal. After you come off the painkillers or reduce,  you wd be unusual to be painless. This is a slow recovery and you will see at the 6th mo xray if hips are level.

    Swelling is awful if.you read my previous earlier posts about the leg compression massager.  It was worth every penny as my swelling was.terrifying. They will tell you to elevate the leg 3 x pday for an hour, but with that and exercising you do start asking yrself if it was all worth it. It does improve at different rates.for everyone.  But that 400 quid kit was my saviour. It is hard to reconcile all the exercising while the swelling is so bad so u have to use common sense. If you can afford it yhe massager will give you more hope . Miracle for me.

    Good luck.  It is slow but gets better. ..

  • carmen56984
    carmen56984 helen09386

    Posted

    Hi Helen.

    I feel for you, everything will be very strange at first, dont forget the you've had a merger surgery all the tissues, blood and muscle have being pulled and streatched, you have metial, screws and all the rest put into your hip.

    It's very early days yet.

    Try and put a small pillow or a roll up towel under your knee to see if that would help, You'll feel very uncomfortable in the first 6 weeks, But do take it easy.

    Wishing you all the very best.

    Keep us updated on your progress

  • annette15401
    annette15401 helen09386

    Posted

    Hi Helen I used to have something very similar almost like when you fall asleep on a sun lounger and wake up with a start!!! It was horrible but only lasted about a week. I am in week 5 now and starting to sleep much better but still put pillows under my knees  it seems to help, also can actually sleep on my side for a couple if hours a night that is bliss xx
  • karolina33830
    karolina33830 helen09386

    Posted

    Hi Helen, 

    Im 8weeks post operation,first two weeks I used to get the same weird feeling of stretching and same spasms ,so I suppose it's very normal. Also my leg and bum was swollen 3 times more when my good side ,I needed to wear my boyfriends tracksuit as I couldn't fit in to my ones smile 

    If I overdo I still get swelling in to my leg.

    It's tough time and long recovery, so take it easy .

    All the best 

    Karolina x

  • marey
    marey helen09386

    Posted

    take magnesium helen....the highest dose you can manage...in addition to keeping well ahead with your analgaesia and doubling up the dose of painkillers before bed  for this initial period.

    your body is reliving the operation and it needs to do this during your slumbers...its part of your recovery!

    take care and very slowly mobilise per instructions....even just practising getting out of bed and walking to the loo counts.

    keep a journal of your progress at this time xx

    the magnesium will not only relax you and help you to sleep but will rebalance a deficiency that we mostly all have....it also helps to ease spasms....taking herbal sleeping tablets if you need to is a good reserve strategy too...often those herbs are very nourishing to the body.  

    hope this helps....thinking of you x

    • Jodi-France
      Jodi-France helen09386

      Posted

      Actually I was instructed by my physical therapist and my general physician to take an iron pill every day. My GP gave me a prescription. Apparently after surgery it is very very typical to have low iron do to blood loss during surgery. I took an iron pill for about a month and noticed the difference after a few days of taking it that my energery level improved. My doc read my bloodwork drawn after surgery and saw that it was exactly borderline for being low in iron.
    • davidintheUSA
      davidintheUSA Jodi-France

      Posted

      My iron level was so low that I had to go in for a veinous infusion of liquid iron once a month. I am on home dialysis which can strip out electrolytes and cause severe cramping.
  • davidintheUSA
    davidintheUSA helen09386

    Posted

    The post op information sheet given me says to contact doctor immediately if swelling occurs. Whole leg swelling is an indication of a serious problem. Don't ignore it and expect it to miraculously go away.. You called your GP when you should have called the surgeon. Please call him ASAP
  • Jodi-France
    Jodi-France helen09386

    Posted

    A lot of people have written about leg swelling and bruising, I never had any of that. After surgery my leg looked exactly like it did beofre surgery except for having an incision. My surgery was from the side not the butt. I wonder if that is a difference? I am 60 years old not obease but surely a bit heavier than I would like.  I didn't wear any type of compression stockings however my physical herapist came 3 times a week and deeply massaged my leg with massage oil.

    I did have Iliopsoas tendonitis which thankfully I and my physical therapist identied very early. I rested that tendon didn't do anthing that aggravated it (sitting would be fine but then when i stood up after sitting it was painful). Instead of sitting I laid prone on the sofa, I just rested it and it took close to a month but it has healed. You do not want to stretch/exercize an injured tendon. Tendonitis means there are litlle tears in the tendon and you have to let those tears heal, not make more tears in it by exercizing it. While on vacation in Spain last week and this week, twice I got a sharp groin pain but it didn't last but a few minutes and then went away (thankfully!)

    • davidintheUSA
      davidintheUSA Jodi-France

      Posted

      Hi Jodi - I had groin pain while I was in PT, complained about it & staff Dr. took xray and found nothing wrong. Pain lasted about a week & then miraculously disappeared. Now, 18 months later I have a failed implant & I still wonder if that early incident had anything to do with the failure.
    • patricis
      patricis davidintheUSA

      Posted

      David, what does this mean?  Do you have to go back and have it again? This must be so upsetting to you...best of luck! Patricia from Toronto
    • davidintheUSA
      davidintheUSA patricis

      Posted

      Patricis- my implant failed and I am scheduled for revision next month. It sure is upsetting particularly since the original surgeon repeatedly denied that there was anything wrong. Now he wants to know why I didn't call on him to do the revision. Wha? After he repeatedly lied to me? No thanks. Then he blacklisted me and I couldn't get a single orthoquack in thte region to even see me so I had to go 600 miles to another city for help.

      I'm not suggesting that the early groin pain is related to this but it comes to mind occasionally.

    • patricis
      patricis davidintheUSA

      Posted

      David, when you say failed, what happend inside your hip..did it come away or out of the socket.....I can't believe you BUT I do believe you when you tell me your were blacklisted...only when you are in the thick of things can you see what can really go on in the medical world...it could not have been easy to go so far away for all appointments, recovery etc...what a shame in this day of medical advance so many so called ops are going wrong...you are told to be proactive in your own care,but just me simply asking my doctor what type of equipment he used and did he something small enough for me (as I was told i had almost child hips bones), did he roll his eyes at me and said "I think we know what we are doing here"!!!! Well I guess that ws to shut me up, was too humiliated to ask anything else, and if you get on his wrong side, the same thing would happen to me as you (and I need him for the left hip next year)...again I'm so sorry for what you are going through, Patricia
    • davidintheUSA
      davidintheUSA patricis

      Posted

      Patricis - Hip replacements are the current "big money cow" of medicine, as open heart surgery was decades ago when millions of unnecessary surgeries were performed at a cost of about $225,000. I haven't yet found out exactly how much mine cost but I'm told it was around $70K. Surgeon likely gets $40k of that. Nice pay for a day's work and thinik of a guy who does fifty of those a year.

      I don't know what the nature of my failure is only that I can't walk. All the xrays and scans did not reveal much and my suargeon said, '"your condition speaks for itself." Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. He did do one very untechnical test: he suddenly grabbed my knee and swung it around. I think my scream could be heard throughout the building. He apologized and I said I fully understood why he did that. THAT was the most telling diagnostic test that led to a scheduled revision.

      I now need to ask him some critical questions like what type of replacement device he intends to use, if necessary. We don't think the head and cup are damaged so it should be only the femoral stem being replaced. He won't know what the problem is until he opens me up. I pray its not infection. Blood tests were neg. but those are not proof, just an indicator.

      My surgeon is rather arrogant and gruff, but I hand it right back to him and he seems to appreciate that. Surprise, standing up to his BS cut right thru it. So you never know and now I actually like the guy.

    • patricis
      patricis davidintheUSA

      Posted

      Thanks for the feedback David....at least you can stand up for yourself and despite the situation seem to have a good attitude.  I'm taking my daughter to all follow up appointments so I have a witness to everything discussed.

      Off the subject, but of interest, I was asked if I wanted to particupate in a study of aligning the leg/hip using laser....up to now they use a manual contraption made out of steel tubing that they attach to your hip and then do measurements manually to align the leg.....I said I would think about it....on one hand I thought i might be more advanced than what they have been using for years and did ask if they double checked the laser measurement by hand, and they said no, that would defeat a blind study (though the patient can ask one year later if they used the laser or the old method)....while reading the waiver I noticed in very large letters/caps stating CONFLICT OF FINANCIAL INTEREST, wherein it stated that each doctor (not hospital but doctor) that used the trial laser was financiall rewarded......I didn't feel too good about this going straight to the doctor....so I said no...anyways this was just an aside...don't know what they use in the UK or the USA.  Patricia

    • davidintheUSA
      davidintheUSA patricis

      Posted

      have seen the "manual contraption" and I think laser measurement would be vasty superior. However there is no way I'd donate my time so those  men can continue to enrich themselves. This is yet another indication of this surgery lagging behind the times. That there are nearly a dozen different prosthesis that have failed with some "recalled" demonstrates just how bad it is. Metal on metal joints? Expletive here. Even I know what will happen if you put such a stupid thing inside a human being.

      Aha, Patricia! Nothing like spelling your own name wrong, LOL. Hey, I can't type in these dang boxes either.

    • patricis
      patricis davidintheUSA

      Posted

      David, did you think I spelt my name wrong as I'm using Patricis...it is an old log on name for work years ago and I just use it out of habit....so I am spelling correctly but my reading needs some help...when you said  "Hey, I can't type in these dang boxes either" I thought you said "boxers" and then I was picturing you sitting at your computer in your BOXERS, hahaha, (sorry) I will read with my glasses from now on!!!!
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