THR Metal, illiopsoas, or both?? My story

[MarkC]

Well I am in the hospital now. Dr. Clifford came out to give my wife the news with joy on his face. He immediately said "he is going to feel sooo much better!". He told my wife that they took out about 100cc's of thick black fluid that looked and felt like motor oil. Scary huh? He was thrilled with the surgery results and says that I should have immediate relief. Dr. Clifford was awesome. He is the only surgeon I have talked to that believed that I could actually have problems with the metal on metal even though my ion levels were WNL. The obvious lesson here is if you have pain and low ion levels (the level that they don't feel the need to do a revision for) there can absolutely be trouble anyway. The docs at Duke wwre conservative, and if I had followed their protocal, I would still that mess in my body. I also now have peace of mind and I think tht is worth a lot. I am not knocking the docs because there is no real wy to know...but my hip never felt right and in the end, I found a gret revison specialist who beleved everything I said.

 

[Kim22]

Congratulations MarkC.Its wonderful that you have found an excellent surgeon who listened to your concerns and acting on them.I look forward to reading all about your recovery on here.

 

[bottomshollow]

both the new and the revised!!!! So happy for you Mark---now you can look forward to getting your life back and doing all kinds of stuff when you reach the end of recovery road.

Take care and keep us posted. We care.

 

[MarkC]

well, they let me go home yesterday. I expected to be in the hospital longer but they said I was doing well enough. I can tell you that getting two hips worked on is a boogarbear. This is going to be slow and painful. But I am soooo glad that I went on and did it. I am going to email my Dr. at Duke and let him know that the conservitive approach was not the right one. Here in the states, docs are only watching ion levels and using that a a barometer to decide about revising the metal on metal. I wand him to know that I was textbook patient who had very low level ions and also great positioning......and yet, no doubt that the thick black crud was causing inflamation.

I am going to take it much slower this time. Actually, having both hips sort of makes you do that anyway. My eyes are on Christmas. I hope that I will have a normal gate by then. If it comes sooner, all the better.

one last thing, there is a doc in alaska that had hip replacement himself. He is a revision specialist. I can't remember his name, but he ended up with cobalt poisoning and says that he has taken out may metal on metal hips from people who had very low ion levels and has seen that same black goop. He all but says to get the metal on metal out. I know it is hard for folks who have no pain to want to do that, however, that nasty black goop seems not to be related to the ion levels. OK, nuff said, back ro recovery.

 

[pt98n]

MarkC Glad to see everything went well. I had normal blood metal ion levels too. I had the Stryker recalled modular stem so seeked out a super specialist as my original surgeon also just wanted to wait. Had MRI showing effusion, had revision 2 weeks ago today and had black gunk too as well as some muscle damage due to it. Let's all do some good healing now so we can go our thing

 

[C Mac]

I remember being in the OS office at one of my follow-up appointments and the computer screen was lit up with the days appointments and there was a long, long list of metal ion monitoring patients. That was a little scary.

If I'd had my hip done 2 years earlier at my original appointment with my surgeon I would have had a MoM appliance.

Hope you are doing a little better each day Mark!!
Take care,
Cardie