MonicaBadHips
new member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2023
- Messages
- 8
- Age
- 52
- Country
United States
- Gender
- Female
My first left thr failed after 2 weeks. The implant slid down and split my femur. This was September of 2021.
I spent 10 weeks in a wheelchair d/t non-weight bearing restrictions while I healed.
In this short 2 years, I've experienced 12 anterior dislocations, at least that many resulting ambulance rides, and four total hip revisions. The most recent revision was on 6/4/23. I was discharged without weight bearing restrictions. I went home with an incision vac for 7 days. The incision vac was wonderful analgesia. Didn't need pain medication until after it was taken off. BUT- the vac had "sucked" a stray end of dissolving suture up through the center of the incision, keeping it from closing in that spot. It drained ALL.THE.TIME. Gross sero-sanguinous leg juice (clear, blood-tinged drainage) that leaked copiously for weeks, until the ortho's plastic surgeon did YET ANOTHER SURGERY on 8/15/23 to try to get that little hole to close up.
Meanwhile, I was getting around fine and painless with my walker post-op, and then without the walker after 2 weeks. I was good. Walking fine without the walker...until about 5 weeks ago, when I began to feel stuff moving around in my left hip when walking. It's like it gets all crunchy feeling, very painful, along with this...dangling sensation. Like my leg is a skin bag full of bones. It feels like an almost dislocation. Or maybe the IT band is...loose? Making the left knee and hip extremely painful and unstable.
I had to start using the walker again because I can't bear weight on it now without it feeling like my greater trochanter is loose in there.
It gets worse and worse, as time goes on, which is the opposite of what should be happening. I was supposed to get better, not worse. The IT band seems to be too long for my now-shortened femur, so it wiggles and bunches up when I'm walking -which isn't as cute as it sounds. It's terribly painful, and allows my knee to give out.
I've lost about 40 lbs in the last couple of months simply because I've been too painful to get out to the kitchen to eat most of the time... I've complained at every appointment for the last 2 months that something isn't right in there.
My theory is that because they've had to revise this left hip so many times (it has a locked down, constrained liner now), and using the same screw holes to secure the acetabular component every time, I'm afraid one of the 2 screw holes are simply STRIPPED, so that when I'm walking, the constrained liner is bending away on one side from where it's supposed to be seated because 1 of the 2 screws is in a loose hole. -Oh, and those constrained liners/receivers ARE PLASTIC, which is why it's bending as I walk, with that screw sliding in and out of its seat.
They always take x-rays before each appointment. You must stay very still for any imaging studies. So, on these x-rays, nothing appears amiss to the surgeon. He says it's unchanged...nothing could be moving. Basically dismissing my concerns and speaking to me as if I'm either insane, a liar, or just an idiot. He prescribed Flexeril, a muscle relaxer. Relaxing the muscles makes it worse, lol. I went to them to get OUT of the pain of osteoarthritis in my hips so that I could get back to my active life and career as a nurse. Now, 2 years later, I'm in WAYYYYY worse condition than before they ever touched me.
The same surgeon did my right thr (my right hip was replaced only once, and without incident in March of 2022.), initial left thr, and the first, second, and third revisions on the left. The fourth (most recent) revision was done by a different surgeon, but from the same Orthopedics practice.
I have an appointment at a different ortho firm in about a week and a half, because I need to get an opinion from a completely unrelated and unbiased practice, and I hope they can help me. Because, if THIS really is my end result, unable to walk, I'm gonna need a wheelchair permanently, and my career might be over. I'm only 52...
I spent 10 weeks in a wheelchair d/t non-weight bearing restrictions while I healed.
In this short 2 years, I've experienced 12 anterior dislocations, at least that many resulting ambulance rides, and four total hip revisions. The most recent revision was on 6/4/23. I was discharged without weight bearing restrictions. I went home with an incision vac for 7 days. The incision vac was wonderful analgesia. Didn't need pain medication until after it was taken off. BUT- the vac had "sucked" a stray end of dissolving suture up through the center of the incision, keeping it from closing in that spot. It drained ALL.THE.TIME. Gross sero-sanguinous leg juice (clear, blood-tinged drainage) that leaked copiously for weeks, until the ortho's plastic surgeon did YET ANOTHER SURGERY on 8/15/23 to try to get that little hole to close up.
Meanwhile, I was getting around fine and painless with my walker post-op, and then without the walker after 2 weeks. I was good. Walking fine without the walker...until about 5 weeks ago, when I began to feel stuff moving around in my left hip when walking. It's like it gets all crunchy feeling, very painful, along with this...dangling sensation. Like my leg is a skin bag full of bones. It feels like an almost dislocation. Or maybe the IT band is...loose? Making the left knee and hip extremely painful and unstable.
I had to start using the walker again because I can't bear weight on it now without it feeling like my greater trochanter is loose in there.
It gets worse and worse, as time goes on, which is the opposite of what should be happening. I was supposed to get better, not worse. The IT band seems to be too long for my now-shortened femur, so it wiggles and bunches up when I'm walking -which isn't as cute as it sounds. It's terribly painful, and allows my knee to give out.
I've lost about 40 lbs in the last couple of months simply because I've been too painful to get out to the kitchen to eat most of the time... I've complained at every appointment for the last 2 months that something isn't right in there.
My theory is that because they've had to revise this left hip so many times (it has a locked down, constrained liner now), and using the same screw holes to secure the acetabular component every time, I'm afraid one of the 2 screw holes are simply STRIPPED, so that when I'm walking, the constrained liner is bending away on one side from where it's supposed to be seated because 1 of the 2 screws is in a loose hole. -Oh, and those constrained liners/receivers ARE PLASTIC, which is why it's bending as I walk, with that screw sliding in and out of its seat.
They always take x-rays before each appointment. You must stay very still for any imaging studies. So, on these x-rays, nothing appears amiss to the surgeon. He says it's unchanged...nothing could be moving. Basically dismissing my concerns and speaking to me as if I'm either insane, a liar, or just an idiot. He prescribed Flexeril, a muscle relaxer. Relaxing the muscles makes it worse, lol. I went to them to get OUT of the pain of osteoarthritis in my hips so that I could get back to my active life and career as a nurse. Now, 2 years later, I'm in WAYYYYY worse condition than before they ever touched me.
The same surgeon did my right thr (my right hip was replaced only once, and without incident in March of 2022.), initial left thr, and the first, second, and third revisions on the left. The fourth (most recent) revision was done by a different surgeon, but from the same Orthopedics practice.
I have an appointment at a different ortho firm in about a week and a half, because I need to get an opinion from a completely unrelated and unbiased practice, and I hope they can help me. Because, if THIS really is my end result, unable to walk, I'm gonna need a wheelchair permanently, and my career might be over. I'm only 52...
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