35, should I get my hips replaced now?

[tom555]

Hi folks,
Looking for some advice on my situation.

I'm 35, very active/competitive in sport for all of my life, until now.

Unfortunately, I now have OA in both hips which is painful and very much effecting my mobility. For at least three years now. I can deal with the pain, currently take 30/500 cocodamol. I have pain getting in and out of the car, putting on socks, carrying my son etc but I can still sleep at night, so not terrible yet.

However, the terribly mobility means I am no where near as active in sport and this is truly making me miserable. I have a two year old son and it even effects my ability to play with him, carry him, and things like that.

My doctor is keen to put the surgery off as long as possible due to my age, and I understand that, but although I could continue in this way for the foreseeable future I am truly miserable and feel like a zombie.

I feel like just getting the surgery now so I can get on with my life and regain my mobility, exercise and play with my son properly. Hopefully!

Has anyone any thoughts or advice on this? Or has anyone been through a similar situation at a younger age?

I do worry that my main motivation for getting it now is to return to being active, sports, martial arts, gym etc. All of which are very important focuses in my life. If I wasn't such an active person I may not be looking to do the operation now and could scrap a few more years out of it even.

Thanks!

 

[Josephine]

Hi and welcome to BoneSmart! It could matter less what your motivation for getting new hips is, the bottom line is that you are in pain and your quality of life currently sucks! That's quite good enough.

My doctor is keen to put the surgery off as long as possible due to my age. Or has anyone been through a similar situation at a younger age?

When you say 'doctor' do you mean your GP? because that's not his call. You need to have this opinion from the expert - a hip surgeon. However, some hip surgeons also have reservations about young persons having hip replacements but there are also plenty who do not. So I strongly suggest you do some research to find a hip surgeon in Northern Ireland who has an interest in "arthritis in young adults". These are the chaps that will be most likely to deal with you.

But trust me, there's many members on here have had hips done that were your age and even younger. You might like to see our star, shugaplum, who had her hip done at the tender age of 24 and two years later gave birth to a fine baby boy!

We've even had four members (or rather their parents!) under 15 who have had hip replacements and one also had both hips done.

So don't be dictated to by your GP or a hip surgeon with out-of-date ideas. You deserve better than that!

 

[Zelda]

Get the surgery. Why should you struggle on unable to get in and out of cars or unable to interact properly with your son?

 

[julesglass]

Hello @tom555 and welcome to bonesmart this the place to be for a lot of good information, support and just people traveling together in the same road you are on. Personally, looking back at about when I was 30 is when my right hip joint would "lock" when I would stand after playing board games with friends. I've never been athletic just light to medium manual labor and giving birth to 4 children. I had asked docs why it did this and some pain when walking to work. Docs thought I was making it up so I shut up. All that said..... do what you need to do to get your life back now. You are a kid to me age wise. There is nothing better than walking almost normal for me. I'm only beginning, I think my 8th wk. post op. Stick around and watch.

 

[kaliella]

I am even younger than you--28--and very recently made the decision to go ahead with a THR. My doctor would also have preferred to wait a bit, but it came down to the fact that, over the course of a lifetime, making it for an additional 1,2, or even 5 years now (which would be really unlikely for me) doesn't really matter much. My pain most days is not very bad, and at those times I sometimes start to doubt myself. But then I look at my latest x-rays again and remind myself that THR is an inevitability for me, and that I will get a few additional pain-free years now with minimal repercussions later down the road. The alternative is to gradually get more debilitated and unable to do the things I love (including hapkido, since you mentioned you're into martial arts), go through periods where the pain flares and really makes life difficult, and then have a replacement in a couple of years anyway.

 

[SugarMonky]

I lived on a painful hip for almost a decade and getting the THR on the left was amazing. The surgery hurt because it's surgery, but when I started to recover, the lack of pain in the actual joint was amazing.

I've put almost 700 miles on my bike since my surgery in June (I got the OK from my surgeon to start riding again in the end of July).

I am now trying to convince a surgeon that I'm not too young to have my other side done.

 

[julesglass]

I say one big, huge and out loud Amen, amen, amen. Listen with ears to hear.

 

[tom555]

Thanks Folks, think I will go for it early next year. Just miserable at the minute and it's wearing on the family too i think. It was my surgeon who was keen to put it off, but saying that, I know he will do it for me if I say it is time.... Will keep you updated as it progresses.

 

[Jaycey]

think I will go for it early next year.

Well done! The sooner the better. The longer you limp around the more complex the recovery. Having to "unlearn" bad habits is hard.

In any case, life is too short to live with mobility issues. And your young son is growing fast. Get those hips replaced and get on with living!

 

[dandy_candi]

Hi there! I am 29 and this year had both hips replaced 6 weeks apart. I had pushed it for years and was in agonising pain and had gotten to the stage where I was barely sleeping and struggling to work and get through the day.

I am glad you have made the decision, a lot of relief comes from knowing there will be some relief coming. I wish I had done mine sooner.

As soon as I met with my surgeon he looked at my X-rays that he would do the surgery. I immediately felt trust in him. Because of the stories of surgeons turning people down because of age, I was prepared to defend my position and had all these reasons why I should have the surgery, but I didn't need them as he said yes right away.

Yes there is a chance you will need a revision, depending on the type of implant, but who could say to someone - you should suffer in pain for a few more years because you might need more surgeries later in life? Although technology has come a long way there are people who had hip replacements in the 70's and thy are still going strong.

I don't regret for a minute having my surgeries. The immediate relief from the grinding bone-on-bone hip pain post op was amazing.

I wish you luck X


Candice - 29 year old from Aus
RTHR 1 June 2016 LTHR 13 July 2016 Revision of LTHR 12 October 2016.

 

[gullimac]

I will echo all that you have heard above. I waited and waited and put up,with a lot of pain, loss of mobility and inability to do things with my young kids. I regret being stubborn and not perusing this earlier. You can not get that time back. I had my first hip relaplaced in April at the age of 43. I had my second this Tuesday.

I found my surgeon through the friend of a friend who had his surgery at about my age. I was lucky and did not have to shop around to find a surgeon that was not caught up in the idea of waiting. There are others on BoneSmart who have had to "interview" several surgeons before finding one they were comfortable with. Don't get discouraged.

There is a wealth of information on this site. Just by exploring other people's threads I recieved answers to questions, some of which I did not even know that I would have until I started reading.

Good luck on your Journey!

 

[Hipmumma44]

I can totally relate tom555 and find myself in a similar situation.

Good luck with it all. No point living in pain and missing out on all the things you enjoy doing if you don't have to!

 

[sandiegomom]

I had a RTHR 11/15, and am going to see the surgeon regarding getting my left one done in the coming months. I'm wondering if you need to shop around for a new surgeon -- or talk to a few, even if you stay w/ yours. I interviewed 5 before I found someone I felt good about. 1 would flat out not do a THR on me, he thought I was too young (I'm 42), and he had a CT scan of that hip that said it was perfectly normal! Turns out when they cut it out, it was completely, 100% bald/red/devoid of cartilage, save for a little skirt of cartilage around the base. In hindsight, I KNEW it. Doctors don't know everything; even diagnostic imaging doesn't know everything, as I learned. And funny enough, all 5 Doctors gave me 5 different reasons as to why I have OA at a young age. So who was right? Just know that of the myriad diseases and issues requiring surgery you could have, you have one that is totally fixable, 100%! How amazing is that?

 

[julesglass]

Ct scan showed normal hip?? How is that possible? I didn't have a ct, just old school xrays.

 

[sandiegomom]

I know! It's all confounding. I had Xray, MRI and then CT Scan just prior to my FAI surgery to allow my surgeon some particular views he wanted while in operation. Then had another MRI post op when I was still in such pain, which showed the hip got worse - I had synovitis of the joint and all sorts of wear everywhere. All along my Xrays never showed much, which is very, very confusing to me. One surgeon (of the 5) was a real old school guy, but had seen 1 million hips!, said he had seen in some patients that they'd have a labral repair, and that repair started what he called a 'biologic process' where the cartilage continued to degrade, rapid-pace, after the surgery, resulting in the need for a hip replacement. But that was his guess. I honestly have no explanation except -- I was pigeon toed as a kid, braced as a result which I think set my hips on a slightly off-center path that ultimately wore out after 40 years. Compounded by the fact that I just don't have great A+ cartilage for genetic reasons. But I'm no DR

 

[Irish Joe]

@tom555
Greetings from south of the border. I'm a little older than you though totally understand how you feel. I was very active before my hips became a problem running, swimming,cycling etc etc. I would say go to another one of those top class clinics that you have up north and seek advice on hip replacements for a young adult such as yourself. When the pain hits it can be hard psychologically to deal with as well as physically. I remember wondering am I washed up and done for at 48 with 4 " kids" at college.
Notwithstanding 1 or 2 unrelated issues I can say even less than one year after having "both" replaced that it was 100% the correct decision and If I were advising my own 35 year old self I'd say crack on and do it.
I think you could also consider the possibility of researching hip replacements in The UK or even in the South of Ireland.
At any rate you deserve to be well and if I can point you in the right direction don't hesitate to ask.
Be well @tom555.
Joe........
( if any of you Americans are planning on holidaying over here sometime go visit the " Titanic Experience" in Belfast City it's amazing.)

 

[Irish Joe]

https://bonesmart.org/forum/members/dandy_candi.20260/ is also right re longevity of the hips. There is a lady in my village who had a hip replacement at 49. She's 81 now, you do the math.
Joe.......

 

[Rutabaga]

I'll chime in here too, even though I'll say the same thing as everyone else. You should absolutely get the surgery and get your life back. I was at zero pain after only like 4 weeks post-op. Months later you will be amazed at how you can get through every day without thinking about your hip once. Or needing to take any pain meds. Or having to change your activities because you're worried it will hurt your hip too much. I got my surgery last year at the age of 31.

 

[Bumpa]

This from the National Joint Registry on longevity of joint replacements:

The age of a patient has an important effect on how long a hip replacement will last, with younger patients, who are likely to be more active, likely to put more strain on their implants and increase the risk of revision, says a new report from the National Joint Registry

“Being young is greatly underestimated,” said Mary Quant, and she was almost certainly onto something. But when it comes to hip replacement surgery, and how long a hip replacement will last, younger patients could be seen to be at a disadvantage, according to the latest report from the National Joint Registry (NJR), which was published in September. The 13th Annual Report revealed that patient factors have a significant bearing on the lifespan of an implant, with younger patients having an increased risk of revision compared with their older counterparts. Moreover, the data reveals that a patient from a younger age group is more likely to be revised irrespective of gender, with the youngest group having the worst predicted outcomes in terms of the risk of subsequent revision.

Established in 2002 by the Department for Health, the NJR monitors the performance of hip, knee, ankle, elbow and shoulder joint replacements to improve clinical outcomes for the benefit of patients, clinicians and industry.

Commenting on the results of the report, NJR medical director Martyn Porter said: “Data emerging from this year’s report show that revision – or ‘re-do’ surgery – estimates following primary joint replacement procedures remain low. For example, primary total hip replacement revision estimates are less than 5 per cent for the majority of procedures at twelve years. Knee replacement data in numerous ways mirrors that of hip replacement.

 

[gullimac]

@tom555 I am curious to bring the focus of this thread back to you. Where are you now on this process?

We are all in different places in this process. For me I am 10 weeks post-op from my 2nd hip and 8 months from my 1st. I turned 44 in October.