Time for a second opinion?

Apparently it takes up to and over a year to be fully healed and see the differences from a hip replacement. Dont rush it or it could make things worse and nobody wants that

That's how I feel about my right hip. Two weeks out of surgery and suddenly WHAM can't put weight on it and the surrounding muscles are in spasm. I've taken anti-inflammatories which I usually find excellent for releasing a spasm, but not this time. I went to gym today and I could see how much muscle wastage there has already been in the last 6 weeks and I see or feel absolutely no improvement

Barb I am sorry you have ripped your muscle, that must have been pretty painful. I have had one or two falls, and it is not very nice. When you say it was repaired, did you have surgery? Or has it just healed?

That is definitely going set you back in terms of recovery time, but it shouldn't be a problem in the long run if it has been repaired/healed.

What are you most concerned about, is your hip joint hurting? Or is it just the lack of recovery...I have to be honest the recovery is slow, it really is, but you have come on, as even walking the dog is more than you did 6 weeks ago, and I am sure if you think about it you are doing far more than you were doing a few weeks back.

Having said all of this, I would not wait to get a second opinion if you are in pain and are worried, there is no point to wait, if you book an appointment at best you will just need reassurance and the worst case is that there is something wrong. It won't harm to find out especially given you have had a fall.

 

I assume you had surgery again for that repair of your quad muscle? Was it done by your THR surgeon? And do you have a limp? Whoever your orthopedist is, he would probably want you to heal from the quad repair before doing anything else. 

I waited 6 months before going for the second opinion. After THR I did lots of PT because I still had a limp. X-rays of implants looked fine, but they don't show soft-tissue injuries. And then there was Thanksgiving and Christmas, so it took awhile. By 6 months, I was really sure that my pain and severe limp were not going to get better. I kept bugging my original surgeon, and he kept saying there was weakness and do more PT, or steroids, or injections. He referred me to someone else in his medical group, a physiatrist, who had my back/spine thoroughly checked out to see if that was the problem, even had a sacroiliac joint injection, and ruled out problems in that area. That took time.

Went back to original surgeon and he had absolutely no idea of what was wrong. That's when I stopped going to him, found the new surgeon, got proper interpretation of my MRI, and got my torn gluteus medius diagnosed. I was also tested/scanned for other problems, such as infection and prosthesis loosening. 

Any competent orthopedist should be able to diagnose your problems using physical exam and scans/tests. If/when you do go for that second opinion, be sure to go to someone in a completely different practice/medical group. 

That's a touchy subject that I'm dealing with as well (for different reasons; I have a leg length discreptency).  I don't want to antagonize my surgeon and I don't feel that he screwed up but I do not feel that my surgery was a success because of the leg length discreptancy.  I believe I'll need to get a revision surgery to fix it and I'd like the same surgeon to do it but he's suggesting to wait to see if it heals and I don't believe time will make any difference so I'd rather do it as soon as possible. So far I haven't tried to get a 2nd opinion but I suspect I may have to in the near future.

Good luck,

Mike