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THR Revision 2.0

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Ruby Red So today is one week with hip 2.0. Doing well, sore as expected and some nice pretty bruises :) Doing some reading, movies and just chilling and healing. Visiting nurse came today, incision with 16 staples looks good. I have a road map on my hip with this posterior incision, anterior one from version 1.0 and 4 scope holes from 2 scopes. It's like counting the rings in a tree to see the hip history. I did venture out on the patio to do some little walking and just enjoy the sun as it was a beautiful day. Hope all is well with everyone. :puppysmooze:
 
The bruising was pretty awful for a few weeks. I too have anterior, posterior and scope scars aka my badges of honor in an attempt to make something positive out of a truly awful situation.

I didn't realize or remember you were a PT. It was good to hear that we need to "respect the healing process". My body quickly reminds me when I'm not. Sometimes it's one step forward and two steps back, then rest. I am getting stronger by the week and my activity level is gradually increasing.

It's a good time of year to have this done so we can get outside. My first replacement was done in the dead of winter. I didn't get out for quite a while.

Have a great day!!
 
pt98n,

It sounds like you are one of those folks who can "do as you say"....meaning, I think you can live by the sound guidance of Physical Therapists (which you know better than any of us). You are young and there'll be plenty of years to enjoy the new hardware. Break it in gently...so that it doesn't break.

Fall and all if it's New England glory is just around the corner and is a PERFECT time of year for slow healing walks.

I was reading an article the other day and one of the respondents (from Vermont) said that Fall has always been her least favorite season and I simply have difficulty fathoming that... :shocked:

Z
 
Ruby Red My first replacement was right before christmas 2011 so didn't go out too much with fear of the ice and falling. Kinda weird how our stories are similar :) Yes, respecting the healing process is always the best way to go, the problem is getting people to accept that fact. I'm glad you are getting more mobile. I have found walking, even in just small increments, is one of the best things. Just concentrate on walking correctly, relax and enjoy the sunshine.

Z15 Yes, I am pretty good about taking my time and hopefully rehabbing well. My motivation is I have no plans on screwing up this surgery, have no intentions of ever doing this again, and keep my eye on the prize. The prize being a painfree well functioning hip so I can do my thing.:dancy:

How can you not like fall? Beautiful time for walks. I did have to close the pool early due to the surgery which was a bummer, but not a big deal. Thanks for the kind words and keep me posted on your latest hip adventure.
 
Ruby Red So today is 2 weeks with hip 2.0. Finished the Lovenox injections and staples out so first big hurdle done :yay: Bruising going away and only some intermittent slight swelling. Should be interesting when I see Dr Kwon at my follow up in 2 weeks, I want to find out exactly how much and what muscles, etc were damaged and see what the new guy looks like on xray. He did give me some good details in the hospital, along with a picture, but I have a clearer head now to really ask for even more details.
 
pt98n Glad to hear all that! I hated the Lovenox and getting the staples out was kind of special as well. Jeesh! I don't understand why we couldn't have had another option besides those injections, something in pill form. Glad that's over.

My follow up is on September 27 at 9 a.m. Someone else I met on BS had an appt. at the same time I did last time I went in, so we got to meet in person. When is yours?

I'm going to ask if he took pictures of my surgery. He didn't volunteer the info. and when I told him my attorney asked him to take lots of pics. he said sometimes they took pictures but that was not the standard of care and they didn't deviate for any reason. It's good you have some. I would imagine they would if there is damage to the extent we experienced.

Keep in touch. I'm happy to hear you are doing so well!
 
Ruby Red My appointment is Sept 18th. I was actuallly surprised with the picture. I asked at my preop appointment if he could take a picture because I wanted to see what it looked like. He said they are usually busy doing the surgery which was fine by me, I prefer he concentrate on surgery and doing an awesome job, so when he and his fellow came in the next day and gave it to me it was a nice surprise. He had another one for another patient so I don't know if he does it for everyone now or I was just lucky and they were doing it for teaching purposes. There is no doubt from the picture this was a metal issue. I do like it that he seems to just want the best outcomes for his patients and doesn't care if it is due to a recall or not. I believe he is not a consultant for any device company either so just does his thing. When I first asked about what stem he would use he told me he had four companies to choose from and would choose the best one for my anatomy and me. That was a good answer.
 
pt98n I'm new here & wondering why you had the revision. Did you have symptoms or you knew you had the recalled implant? My husband had an anterior approach THR 1/2012. Initially was doing fine first 8 months. Now he limps worse than before surgery & pretty sever pain in front thigh...Been back to surgeon several times & he says implant all good & sent him to back dr. MRI from that shows nothing of significance in his back for amount of pain he is in. Now I read about this recall. My first call in am is to see exactly which implant he has, though I know it was a Stryker.
 
We got the hospital report as doctor's office didn't get back to us yet. He has the Stryker Trident shell, X3 polyethylene liner, Stryker Accolade stem & ceramic head. So not one of the recalled models? Went to primary doctor to have blood work done, got a 'script for X-ray & perhaps will seek 2nd opinion??
 
Ruby Red So this week I am 4 weeks post op and had a follow up with my surgeon. Everything looks good, components haven't moved and in good allignment. I can start weightbearing at 20% and increasing by 20% each week, so another month before full weightbearing but that is fine, the new component and everything has to heal. No more compression stockings:yay:, still hip precautions, as I expected again no biggie, until I see him again in 8 weeks. Incision looks great and only about 10cm so he kept it as minimally invasive as he could. he and I are both happy on that one. Only took Tylenol for the first two weeks and only need once in awhile now, still ice as needed. Ice, I think is one of the most easiest and helpful things starting right after surgery. I was told I had a "moderate" amount of tissue damage due to the metal ions so glad I didn't wait. Not too exciting but that's the latest and all is going well. :yes!:
 
So good to hear from you! That's great that your pain levels are so low. Sounds like you are doing very well. :happydance:

I just finished up PT yesterday, for now anyway. He said there is still some weakness in that leg and room for improvement though. I will do some at home exercises and see how it goes for a little while. Something I was doing there aggravated my hip and has pretty much kept me in constant pain to some degree and it's exhausting, so I am anxious to see if doing at home exercises helps to give it the time and space it needs to heal some more.

Keep us posted. I hope everything continues to go well for you!
 
pt98n what are some gentle range of motion exercises? I had home pt visits for several weeks and am still having trouble doing hip abduction exercises (lying on my side with a pillow between legs and lifting leg and lying flat with pillow and moving leg outward). I can only do these maybe once daily even tho my pt prescribed 2-3 times daily. Now my OS prescribed more PT at my local hospital. I had major problems with hip abduction pre-op as well for many years and this interferred with one of the major enjoyments of life, if ya foll me ;)
 
I've never heard of an AlterG before. I see they have one in North Easton as well, which is closer than Hopkinton.

The exercises I was doing there: I started on the table on my back with a 3 lb. wt. (worked up to that from 1 lb). Left leg bent, wt. on right (operated) leg. Lifted it for 3 sets of 10. Everything is 3 sets of 10.
On my side I then did side legs lift with the operated leg and the wt. 3 lbs. was too much so switched back to 2.
Then moved the wt. to the knee area and did a clam shell exercise, I'm assuming you know what I mean.
On my stomach did leg lifts with the leg straight and at a 45 degree angle.
Moved to the leg extension and flexion machines.
Then balanced on a disc, started with two feet, which got too easy, so was doing one leg at a time.
Next I laid down on my back on a bench and pushed the weight away from me. It was a foam covered bar attached to the weight machine. Did that with both legs.
On the same machine, I stood and with the bar adjusted down around my shins I lifted the legs, one at time naturally, to the front, side and back. It seemed to be the side lifts that were the killers and probably those combined with the lying side lifts with weights.
Then I used what he called the sports chords. They are attached to the wall and you strap them to your waist and walk out against the resistance - to the front, to both sides, and walking backwards. You can increase the resistance by adding chords. I was up to three.
And that was the workout.

The pain is usually right around the incision (and the area where all the tissue was removed). It aggravates the tissue which hasn't healed yet, I'm guessing. Sometimes I get stem pain/pain in the quad. but that usually goes away more quickly than the pain in the butt and side of the hip.

I am to do exercises at home, which I was given for the last surgery. I haven't pulled them out yet because it was just yesterday that I last went to PT and am giving it a few days to settle down before I do anything else.

If you can give me any tips or exercises I would LOVE it!

Hope you can understand my explanations of what I was doing. Thank you so much for offering to do this. I decided to do it on here in case anyone else could benefit.
 
@RunaroundSue - I was told also to do the exercises three times a day right from the get go and tried it a couple times and was like - YA GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!?? Once a day was about all I could muster for at least a couple months. It doesn't seem like we are given enough time to heal before they are putting the muscles through their paces again and the tissues are just not ready for it yet.
 
Ruby Red Thanks! I feel better about not doing what he ordered. Even though the most I ever did was twice a day I did improve greatly and he was very pleased with himself. He said I had one of the highest scores he ever saw on my final test and he couldnt believe how strong I am. He was sure the OS must not have cut my rotators because I could almost lift the foot of my op leg up to the opposite knee (as men cross their legs) the first time I tried. If I did too much I skipped days because of pain and I am sure that didn't help me any. :)
 
pt98n I didn't realize your post was here. I usually get an e-mail notifying me and didn't and I hadn't logged in for a few days. Thank you for your response!

That's interesting about the leg lifts while lying on my back. I'll avoid them as well. He did not do any soft tissue work on me. I have a foam roller, which I haven't used yet but it helped after the last surgery, and I do some yoga. The yoga both helps and also aggravates at times depending on what I do, though I am very careful. What would you advise your post-revision patients about doing yoga and bike riding? I have a stationery bike also. I walk every day with my dog for about a half hour. I have to concentrate on my gait though because my body is readjusting and I feel a little off. If I have to go back to PT I will look into an office that has the AlterG treadmill.

Your suggestions are great! I can do the balancing and squats without a problem and will try standing leg lifts. Would you recommend any ankle weights with the standing left lifts? Standing yoga poses (basic ones) don't seem to be a problem, in a modified form on that leg. Dr. Kwon removed my restrictions after 3 months but I think I still need to maintain them to some degree for a while longer because going beyond a certain point causes soreness when I come back up to standing or to 90 degrees. I'm a little leary about doing anything right now because I'm tired of being sore and exhausted from the constant pain. Granted it's not like level 2 or 3 pain, but it's chronic, low level and tiresome.

Maybe I'll get out my PT exercise sheets that I've accumulated over the past few years and run some of the exercises by you so I can put some sort of home routine together that doesn't aggravate the incision area. It's been since Wednesday since I last went to PT and I am done with PT, but my hip is still store. I'm icing and taking Tylenol and resting. I rode my bike slowly for about 20 minutes yesterday, in lieu of walking with the dog, she trotted alongside me. I actually enjoyed that a lot more but don't know if that aggravates it. The Tylenol hasn't been working the past few days. Do you recommend I wait a couple more days to continue with exercises until the soreness goes away?

Dr. Kwon said it would likely be about six months before all the pain goes away. I'm at five months now. I'm hoping it's slowly dissipating. I just don't want to do anything to make it any worse at this point.
 
Thank you, thank you! Especially for the perspective. I think I should be farther along than I am, or just want to be farther along than I am because it's been such a long road, as it has for you as well. I had signed up for a couple of yoga workshops, one of which was today, both of which I cancelled out of. I'm nowhere near ready for that, not even ready for a one hour class yet. I went to one class a month ago and was sore for a week, in the area of the tissue damage. I hope he got it all out and that it's just that it needs a lot more time to heal. I can live with that. I have an appt. on Friday and am going to ask if he took any pictures and what exactly he took removed. Staying out of deep hip precaution areas make sense. Just because he lifted the restrictions doesn't mean it's ok to go there I am finding.

I'm happy to hear that about walking because I am literally five minutes from the Blue Hills and miles of hiking trails, the dog can come and the whole family loves it. I don't have straps on my pedals so that isn't a problem. But I hadn't thought about how the hip flexors are used in biking. I wonder if my PT was trying to strengthen them with the weighted leg lifts on my back. Now that I hear all you are telling me I'm wondering if I've been overdoing it in PT all this time with all the weighted exercises and that maybe all these issues could have been avoided. Can't change that now though. My legs are stronger and I can take it easier now.

Can't thank you enough. You have been very, very helpful!!
 
I got it even without the tag.

I'm sorry to hear about your dog. That must have been very difficult. We have a lab/chow mix. We couldn't have ended up with a better dog for us. A new puppy is great to look forward to and by then you'll be ready for it.

I like your philosophy, everything about it. It's gentler and allows for enough rest and strength building. I was glad to hear my approved visits were done at PT because I was ready to try something different - a more gentle approach. And now I have it!

Two days in between I know would work better for me. I feel more relaxed about the whole thing already. I love the less is more way of going about it. We don't need anymore trauma to the area or the system as a whole.

I'll let you know what Dr. Kwon says Friday. Thanks again!!:happydance:
 
pt98n I missed that about your Akita before and had to go back a page. Im so sorry, I know so well how hard it is to lose our furry companions.

Thanks! I have pretty much been doing just as you recommended. I even lie in my recliner and do the heel slides and ankle pumps while watching tv. My PT did not recommend the straight leg lifts while on your back, only the hip abduction while on your side ones. He only had me do the leg straightening one with a rolled towel under the knee.

I do the knee curls, side leg lift, balance on one leg while supported for only 10 seconds tho. I get up and down from low toilet and chairs no problems and do deep knee bends as able. I still have trouble balancing on the operated leg with no support while getting dressed tho. That's scary for me. I can pop up off the chair/toilet no hands just like a Jack-in-the-box LOL! I am soooo proud of that because pre-op I struggled so to get off the chair/toilet and to straighten up took at least 30 seconds.

The PT never touched me except to check my strength pushing back in the final test. I havent yet gone to the hospital for the outpatient the OS prescribed. I dont think I will let anyone touch me much, I have a big problem with that. I cannot stand to be touched by strangers, even doctors. I'm just like that.
 
Hi pt98n, I just found out about your thread a few days ago, from Ruby Red. I too, have had a recent Stryker revision and have another in my future because I had them both replaced in June, 2011. I had a revision of my left hip that included a osteotomy on July 29th. I had the Rejuvanate stem and an ADM cup. My surgeon replaced both the stem and cup and used a Stryker product for both, he said, because it would fit the best. I had no complications but it has not been fun. I had weight restrctions for 5-1/2 weeks and had an x-ray on Sept 4 which showed that the femur was healing nicely, and he lifted the weight restrictions. He told me I could walk with one crutch or two or none, as much as I could tolerate, so I have been limping aroung my house with no crutches most of the time. I use a crutch when I go out. My home is 5 levels though, and I can hardly go anywhere without having to do stairs, so I get plenty of exercise.

Much to my surprize my surgeon did not want me to have PT until after I see him on October 16th. He wanted me to heal at my own pace and not work anything too hard. I see from your posts that you agree, so that makes me feel a little better about being so lazy. I do wonder though, if I am doing harm by walking without a cruch. I have quite a limp when doing so.

Before the surgery the MRI showed that I had a "moderate sized fluid collection, likely a seroma, on the posterior margin of the greater trocanter of the left hip". There was no evidence of fluid on the right side so my surgeon thinks it may not be necessary to revise that one. I had fairly high ion levels prior to sugery and he says we will start testing them again after 3 months to see if they change. My opinion is that it will need to be replaced. It has always been painful and if I were to predict which one would fail I would always have said the right.

How are you progressing? I assume your recovery is somewhat different from mine because you did not have the osteotomy. I hope you are doing well.
 
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