Bilateral THR My New Hips Are Here

[Jen]

Z, it is great that your PT's are so willing to work with you on developing your rehab program. It's funny that you mention them not going "by the book" because that is one thing that bothered me about the first PT. It felt like she was going by the book as opposed to tailoring the routine to my needs.

Tom and Haldox, if I could I would throw a PT party including everyone. I can't say enough good things about this new place. I knew I could get the muscle strength back eventually so I wasn't too worried about the exercises. It's the manual therapy that was important to me and I really lucked out in finding a facility that specialized in that.

Thank you President Dorothy . You are exactly right about the stretching and I am making sure to get in the prescribed stretches everyday. There is already a difference in just the week since I've started with my new PT so I'm looking forward to seeing where I am a month from now.

 

[dianemarie]

Pres Dorothy,

I want to be in the "club" since I have worn nothing but sweats since sometime in October...thanks for heading this up Ha!Ha!
Jen, Glad you are doing so well and the PT sounds like a little slice of heaven...wish we all could find the same. Take care.

 

[DallasSarah]

Hi Jen,

We need a name for the new club! Ideas....

Hipsterhood of the traveling sweatpants
Hippyswagger of the sweatpants
Hips reunited in their yogis pants

I'm digressing now.....

Your thread always makes me smile and giggle! Don't worry about the cupcakes, once you are completely back to normal the weight comes off. Jaycey had told me this and she was right, I also had to stop enhaling my meals too hehehehehe! Wow I had some fun food during those first few weeks!

Hope your weekend is going great!

xxooxx

 

[djklaugh]

Love the idea of the club .... but hey can't I join too? While I don't usually wear sweatpants - I may hold the record for most consecutive days wearing soft flannel pajama bottoms ;) I think that rates at least an associate membership :biggrin: Or expand your membership criteria - and name the club something like Hipsters in the Garden of Soft pants and Sweats.

Or Hipsters In Sweats and Soft pants ( aka HISS)

Or Hipsters in Phlannel and Sweats - aka HIPS ( creative spelling there to make the acronym come out right)

 

[Jamie]

:th_heehee:

 

[haldox]

My vote is on H.I.P.S.-good one DEB:th_heehee:

 

[DallasSarah]

Hehehehehe.....love H.I.P.S this is very funny!

 

[Jen]

Now all we need are matching sweatpants with H.I.P.S spelled out in flannel patchwork down the side. We can use rhinestones on the "I" to make it look like a hip implant. Yes, I have too much time on my hands right now.

 

[C Mac]

So I made my first trek to the new PT place last week and found heaven. The space is great and my new PT is fantastic (old PT specifically recommended her). Two things that immediately stood out: 1) Every session starts with 10 minutes of moist heat on your affected area(s). My quads were singing after this. Then at the very end of your session they give you 10 minutes of ice to calm the muscles down. Magic. 2) The therapists are very hands-on. After I had completed my exercises, my PT took me to a therapy table and proceeded to work on softening my incision scars, massaging out my quads and IT band, and stretching out my hamstrings and glutes.

Hi Jen!

Coming for a visit in your thread :wink1: I think your PT program sounds great and I hope that you are still finding it helpful. My surgery was also anterior approach and I did have some adhesions at the incision area -- not necessarily the scar itself, but also the muscles underneath that had spent that time in the retractors and were having a little rebellion afterwards. I found that the adhesions did shrink with both time and gentle kneading and this led to an increase in ROM.

Do you feel like your quads and hip flexors are starting to function better? As you are only 7 weeks out from surgery I am hoping that you'll get your leg muscles back into shape from your PT and not have to venture into rolfing like I have had to -- fingers crossed for you!!

Take care,
Cardie

 

[rider1960]

HISS sounds sassy! I vote for that one!

Jen, I'm so glad you found a good PT. It's really hard to find a good one that works with you one on one, rather than just sticking you on a machine and leaving you to do everything yourself. That's one of the reasons I have passed on outpatient PT--I've been to two different ones in the past and neither did much for me and they hardly worked with me one on one at all. They had many patients going a once. There was no way to get much individual attention. But, if the surgeon thinks I need to have outpatient PT after I see him on the 19th, I will try it one more time ... but I'm hoping that he will say I'm doing OK on my own and just continue what I'm doing.

I've found stretching is just as important as muscle strengthening--kind of like a counter exercise to balance things out!

Dorothy

 

[Dee205]

Jen,
Love the H.I.P.S yoga pants!! Might have to get a pair for side #2. So glad you found a great PT......it really helps to have someone who's on the same page and works with you. Keep up the great work....sounds like its going great!

Dee

 

[Bilateral]

Jen,

The pajama, sweat pants in public was not the look I was going for, but love the HIPs name for the club. I suggest we put the H.I.P.S. across the butt, it seems to be the fashion these days.

 

[Jamie]

I suggest we put the H.I.P.S. across the butt, it seems to be the fashion these days.

:th_heehee: Maybe with an arrow pointing to the THR side :th_heehee: What a fashion statement!!!! Hippies ROCK!

 

[djklaugh]

*
< ----- H.I.P.S. ----->

*

New logo for BTHRs :biggrin:

 

[djklaugh]

Drat the little stars were supposed to be centered over and under the word HIPS.

 

[DallasSarah]

Hahahaha this is such a funny conversation!

I think your arrows need to point down a little Deb towards both your hips!

 

[djklaugh]

Well if HIPS is centered on the "sit upon" part the arrows would be pointed about right ;)

 

[Jen]

Susan and Deb that is hilarious. But we better be ready because ChefHuber is going to give us the lecture of a lifetime when he hears about the writing on the butt. :th_heehee:

Cardie, those muscles in the front sure do get worked over with the anterior method don't they? My quads and hip flexors are slowly loosening up and working as they should. I noticed a week or so ago that I could raise my knees much higher and as a result stair climbing had become much easier. It used to be that when I went to step up with one leg, I would have to go up on my toes on the lower leg in order to be able to lift the upper leg up onto the step (did that sentence make any sense at all?!). It's a little thing but it made me happy as it was proof that things were improving. I suspect that the single leg step ups my PT has me doing have helped.

Outpatient PT continues to be a great experience. My PT adds a new exercise to my routine at each session and today it was walking backward on the treadmill. First she had me walking forward at a very slow pace so she could check my gait and see if there had been any improvement from my first visit. I was a lot less Frankenstein's monster and much more CIndy Crawford on a Versace runway in her heyday.

Okay, I am exaggerating on the last part but only a little bit.

Okay, I am exaggerating a lot but I have improved. Some of that is due to me making a conscious effort to be aware of how I walk thanks in part to the High Emperor of the Fashion Police. He is quick to let me know if I fall back into my monster walk.

Once my PT was happy with my forward motion she had me try walking backward (very slowly). This is something I've been doing informally in my house since the surgery as a way to give the hip flexors a little dynamic stretch. Well, walking a very short distance backward and walking backward on a treadmill feel completely different. It took a minute to get accustomed to the motion but once I did I was off to the races. And I mean that strictly in the sense of the old expression, because I couldn't really race anyone these days even if I wanted to. Except maybe centenarians. But frankly, even they would beat me.

 

[ozagility]

Hi there Hipsters,
I do like the H.I.P.S idea Jen, Hipsters In Pyjamas/Sweatpants. (we call them track pants in Oz) I am still wearing light fabric pants to work and even now, 12 weeks on, cant wait to get home and put my pyjamas on, the most comfortable of all clothing.
Speaking of hipster clothes, I purchased a t-shirt from the US from a lady who designed a catchy slogan for joint replacement recipients who do dog agility. (she also does ones for menopausal ladies). My t-shirt has Bionic agility we're titanium tuff on the front with a knee and hip picture. On the back, a little dog bone drawing and We love heavy metal. Of course I just had to have one of those when I saw them on site. Now with the shirt and your pants Jen I would have a matching set.
You can check out the t-shirts I mentioned at menopaws dot org. I thought they were clever and the designer also came up with the idea recovering from a hip replacement I understand.
cheers
ch

 

[Jen]

The combination of time and an excellent PT can work wonders. At around nine weeks after my surgery I can honestly say that I am feeling and moving better than I have in over a year-and-a-half. There must be something magical about the 6-8 week point after surgery because not long after my last post, I started to notice that my hips suddenly felt much more mobile and the internal swelling that seemed to restrict movement had dissipated. In addition, my PT detected that lower back tightness was actually restricting my hip flexion. Once she started to work on that, it was as if the clouds had parted on rainy day and the sun came shining through.

My hips now feel very "free" so walking and stair climbing are easy. That is something I couldn't have imagined last December. All of that tightness I was complaining about? Pretty much gone. I actually think I might end up being more flexible than I was before my hips really began to deteriorate. Funny what having proper joints can do eh?

For anyone reading this who is still in the first few days or weeks of recovery and is feeling down because it seems like recovery is moving too slowly and that you'll never be able to do what you once did, please don't worry . Give yourself plenty of time to recover, stick to your exercises and stretches, and you'll be an even better version of your old self.