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Reassurance please!

Yay for 'bad' imaging....:yes!:not that I'm wishing pain and disability on you @Cassidy , but it does clarify things if you're feeling a bit of a fraud :heehee: hope you get that appointment soon
 
Hi @Cassidy once again we share a similar experience. I had to see the joint degeneration and bone on bone to believe how bad it was. I started out feeling a fraud like you because I don’t have the chronic and severe pain that most others do. But now I’ve tried to alter my thinking and accept this as a blessing and hopefully it will also mean an easier recovery. We won’t be like others who say they can feel the difference immediately after surgery because their chronic pain is gone. But we will feel the difference when we realize that we don’t have to avoid doing the things we love because they’ll cause pain.
I’m 6 days away from surgery now and I hope that when it’s done I’ll be able to give you more of the reassurance that you need. I understand.
 
Hello @AJinNH - same age as me too! I look forward to hearing about your experience and I'm assuming it will be all good, for both our sakes! Are you having a general anaesthetic or a spinal? I thought I was going to have the former - although it might be a long wait in my case - but the OS said he does it under the second method, so now I'm worrying about that!!
 
Hi @Cassidy I'm scheduled to have general anesthesia, but would have preferred to have a spinal. I plan on discussing that with the surgeon and anesthesiologist the morning of surgery. Spinal's seem to be easier and quicker to recover from, but my surgeon prefers the total muscle relaxation of the general. I guess we picked these docs because the are so good at what they do, so I don't plan to push back too hard about it. Anything to make the OS's job easier will benefit me I hope. It seems that most people are having spinals on this forum, and they all seem happy with that choice, so I'm sure that you'll be fine.

Six weeks post surgery for me will be the day after my birthday, so hopefully I'll get to celebrate by being off of all med's by then. I spoke with a woman yesterday who's had both hips replaced (a year apart) and she never took anything stronger than NSAIDs and was off those by two weeks post op. And her incisions are longer than mine is planned to be, so I was encouraged by that. She also humored me by touching her toes and squatting :heehee:
 
@AJinNH I hadn't really spoken to the OS about method, as I've only seen him once before and that was to see if he thought I'd be a suitable candidate. I was determined to pin him down a bit more this time, having read all the info on this forum, so asked about approach (posterior), stitches (glue) and anaesthetic (spinal - I very much hope with lots of sedation!) - and to reassure myself that he'd be doing the op himself, as we tend to be seen by "one of the team", as opposed to the consultant that we've been referred to, which doesn't give the opportunity to ask questions and, after my bad experience before, I didn't want to be operated on by any random! Like you, I've spoken to all sorts of people who've had the op - the subject seems to just crop up during conversation - and who all (so far at least!) say it's totally changed their life and activity levels for the better. I'm sure we'll both be fine and hopefully celebrating our 63rd birthdays in style (mine is in July, but it looks as though I might have to wait a bit longer than you for the op itself). Touching toes and squatting sound good to me!
 
Hi @Cassidy, sounds like you've got it covered. I hope that you don't have to wait too long, it just prolongs all of the worrying and second guessing. I'll be having stitches as I'm allergic to surgical glue. Luckily I found that out several years ago when a plastic surgeon removed a lipoma from my forehead. It was a very small incision but reacted quite a bit to the glue. Luckily it eventually healed up nicely, there's no visible scar. The plastic surgeon told me to make sure that I told my doctors about the allergy, then he said that it was too bad because the glue is great stuff, the scar ends up being barely noticeable, so you're lucky there. Of course because it's unusual to have an allergic reaction to surgical glue I'm now waking up at night worrying about what else I might have a reaction to that I'm not aware of yet. I can't wait until this is done and I can stop worrying! :groan:
 
@AJinNH - we sound similar in the worrying about everything respect! As they say, I'd be worried if I didn't have anything to worry about. Mind you, my Gran was a worrier and made 98, so it didn't do her too much harm; probably keeps the brain active. I don't expect you're allergic to anything else. I should imagine it might be easy to be allergic to surgical glue - I've yet to find out! I don't tolerate NSAID's very well, as they do nasty things to my stomach, so I'm wondering what painkillers they'll find me in their place. If we didn't have all this thinking to do, what would we do with ourselves?! :what:
 
@Cassidy you are so right, I think worrying keeps me on my toes and organized. That's a good question, 'what would we do with ourselves?', I don't know what I'd be doing with all of this worry energy. But there'd be a lot more room in my freezer :heehee:

I can't take NSAIDs either, I took them for awhile at the direction of a former orthopedic doctor who told me to take them prophalactically, but I ended up with GERD (reflux) and now need to medicate that daily. I'm still hoping that will eventually go away. The good thing about getting GERD was that after a few months of not taking any pain meds I discovered that my pain was more manageable. I'm convinced that pain meds make you more sensitive to the pain thus requiring the need for more meds. Now I take acetaminophen (paracetamol) very rarely, and I tolerate that well. I'm hoping that's what I'll primarily be taking post surgery. I'll let you know how my stomach holds up.
 
Hi @Cassidy ....can I join in with you and AJ about the 'not bad enough for surgery' thing? Even tho I've now done my pre-op and they didn't throw me out with accusations of 'hypochondriac' and 'fraud', a tiny corner of my brain still can't believe this is all actually going to happen, even tho I can intellectually justify it. So yes, perhaps they just need to knock us on the head and get on with it....leaving us to reap the benefits afterwards. Do you have a surgery date yet? Makes it more real when you get it. I'm having a mini posterior (I think, my surgeon seemed rather surprised when I asked him, and that put me off my stride), uncemented, no idea what closures but anything they don't have to take out would be good :thumb: and the anaesthetist hasn't rung to talk about what is on offer, but I'm leaning towards spinal (with STrONG sedation!) Unfortunately my surgeon seems pretty conservative and seems to go for all the restrictions plus Teds for 6 weeks....hoping to sweet talk him out of that when I see him before I go under :wink: I'm hoping AJ is right about the pain meds.....I rarely take anything, so hopefully it won't take much to make us totally pain-proof
 
Hello @anny. You're more than welcome to join the club! It did help when I saw the OS on Monday and he showed me the MRI scan and said that the joint looked pretty squashed. It was hard to see such detail on the x-ray, but the MRI showed it much more clearly. However, I've still had on and off days since then, and still have times when I wonder what I'm doing!..... It looks as though my op won't be for 4 - 5 months, unless I get a cancellation, so I don't know whether to be relieved or sorry about that. I'll certainly be looking out for you and @AJinNH and wishing you both well through your respective surgeries - maybe you'll be able to teach me a few things by the time I get to mine (but don't tell me anything else to worry me, please!)
 
Hi @anny so glad to have you join our club! You and @Cassidy may be the only people who understand that I’ve been running around all week pushing the limit a bit to get my hip to hurt. Last night I finally got my wish, although it wasn’t too bad, yet I did toss and turn all night.
I’m having a mini posterior as well, stitches because I’m allergic to surgical glue and general anesthesia because it’s what my surgeon prefers. I’ll have Ted’s for at least a month, plus I’ll be giving myself Lovenox anticoagulant shots for at least 30 days, there’s a family history of blood clots. At least that’s the plan now. I find out this evening what time I’m scheduled on Monday.
@anny we’ll have to compare notes.
Let us know when you get your surgery date @Cassidy, I hope you don’t have to wait too long.
 
Hi @AJinNH....have you been told you'll have restrictions with the mini-p too? Thought I'd got a handle on the 90deg thing, but when they actually started talking about i totally spaced out.....found myself thinking 'well, how would I do so-and-so, and what would I do about....' Talk about overthinking it! I seem to have gone from 0-60 in the past 4 days, when it comes to panicking! You're on with the note-comparing.....and @Cassidy. you can learn from our mistakes :wink:

PS AJ....I've also been running round flat out and sort of hoping my hip might give at least one good twinge (so that I can at least claim I've had bad pain) but no.....dog-tired, bone-weary but NO pain (no sleep either but more uncomfortable than REAL pain). Intellectually I can see how crazy this thinking is, but it seems to make sense at the time :rotfl:
 
I’m right there with you @anny I can certainly relate to being exhausted but not sleeping well. As far as restrictions go, at the joint replacement class they said probably no restrictions, however when I initially met with my surgeon he said no bending, so I’m assuming he’s imposing the 90 degree restriction, he seems the cautious type which is fine with me. You’ll figure out how to do things. They’ll probably send you home with a grabber, I got extra for when I drop one :heehee:
Then there’s the ‘golf’ bend where as you bend forward you stretch your operated leg straight behind you so that it’s not bent at the hip; it’s very important to hold onto something securely as you bend. And of course, if it’s not urgent let someone else get it. Accept as much help as you need.
I’ve set up small containers next to my bed to hold things in one place on my nightstand. I also went around the rooms I’ll be using post op and made sure everything was placed at waist height or within easy reach. Same thing with my clothes, rearranged my clothes so the things I’d be wearing are easily accessible.
I also found a bed side organizer bag on Amazon that I have hanging off of the arm of the sofa next to my recliner that’s holding all of the things I’ll need such as charger for my phone, iPad, books, glasses and remotes etc. Hopefully that will keep me from dropping them.
I hope this helps.
Well I’m off now to see if I can get that hip firing :dubious:
 
I'm a bit late to the “ party” with my 2 cents worth, but I can relate to some of your concern. I have 2 TKR with the last being July 2017, so still somewhat in recovery mode. I went to see my OS for what I thought was tendonitis when he announced that I need a new hip- NOW! I was stunned, to say the least! I begged for a cortisone inj because I am going to Paris April 13 and refuse to cancel! The inj did little or nothing, the pain has begun causing my hip/leg to buckle sporadically so I have purchased a sassy cane and am still going on the trip! Surgery is June 12 because since I had the inj, I had to wait 3 months!
ALL of that to say, we will all be FINE! A joint replacement when you have OA is a blessing. The recovery is not forever and soon you will not even think about it! Life goes on! I have a friend who was on the golf course 3 wks after her THR!
 
Thanks for the wisdom @Thesoutherncook it’s just what I need to hear, I should be in recovery this time tomorrow. Nothing left to do now but try to relax and wait.
 
Good luck @AJinNH - I'm sure all will go well tomorrow. You're the vanguard for @anny and me so, joking aside, believe all the good things that you've heard on this forum, try to relax (easy for me to say, I know), and I look forward to reading of your great progress. I'll be really envious when you're over and done with and I'm still waiting!! All the best for the morning.
 
Thanks @Cassidy I really appreciate your support and encouragement. Don’t worry, I’ll be there to help you through as well. It’s a journey made easier by those who’ve been there and are gracious enough to share their experiences. Paying it forward.
Stay tuned, I hope it doesn’t take too long for me to check back in again after surgery.
Thanks again. xxxooo
 
Hey @Cassidy and @anny I just wanted to let you know that I made it through, and so far it’s been much better than anticipated. And despite all the concern about whether it was too soon to have the replacement, the doctors assured me that there was a lot of deterioration as well as bone spurs. I’m very glad that I got this done now. I’ll be waiting for you to join me at the end of the week @anny.
 
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