Six months after hip pinning, worrying about AVN

hipster17

new member
Joined
May 21, 2017
Messages
1
Age
70
Location
Deurne
Country
Belgium Belgium
Gender
Female
I joined BoneSmart today and am very happy to find a website were I can talk with fellow 'hipsters'.

Fell and fractured my right hip on Christmas Eve last year, had 3 screws put in on Christmas Day (my surgeon calls me his Christmas Girl - I'm 63) and recovery went with ups and downs, both physically and mentally.

It doesn't help that I had surgery for Cauda Equina Syndrome the year before and two hernia ops (I have spinal stenosis), a stroke in 1989 which left my left side spastic, LLD and with a drop foot, plus a fall (caused by the drop foot) in which I fractured my pubic bone (don't try this at home!) and a fractured back in a car accident (as a passenger). And I'm a careful person!

Not sure why all this stuff happens, but it is what it is. My pelvis is a bit of a mess after all these happenings and surgeries and it's impossible to walk straight/without a limp. This also means that starting to walk again with the repaired hip caused all kinds of chain reactions lower down: hamstring, knee, foot...

I also suffered anxiety attacks and depression for months after this surgery and I never had that with the other surgeries- maybe it's because I get older, or maybe this was one surgery too many?

I'm now 21 weeks post op and still have quite a lot of pain in my groin and butt, still can't put my right foot on my left knee when sitting down (not that I should), waddle like a duck when I'm tired and am very scared of developing AVN, although there are no signs so far- the fracture was not displaced, healed perfectly and the X-rays show nothing abnormal (but if it did it would be too late anyway).

I go to PT twice a week (found one with a heated pool a few weeks back and that feels very good, as I can move almost without effort in the water), cycle on the home trainer 10 minutes per day, do stretching exercises every morning, go outside on my tricycle when the weather is OK and try to walk a bit with a walking stick, but 200 meter or so is my maximum- almost half a year after the surgery! Surely this is not normal?

I can turn my foot inward a bit without pain, but when I lay down on the bad hip it's as if I can feel the screws (they push into my flesh)- I also have blue bruises constantly on the spot where the 3 screw 'heads' are. So I can't lay on that side for more than 1 or 2 minutes. I wonder if all of this is normal and expected as I have no experience of this kind of surgery.

Any feedback is appreciated. Thank you from Belgium!
 
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Reactions: MJK
Goodness me.
That's so much to have to deal with. I hope you can set some things straight with the help of people on this forum.
@Josephine is the most experienced person here and may be able to help you with some of your issues.
I wish you the very best.
Joe.....
 
@hipster17 you've certainly had a lot to deal with. The screws sound painful, if you're able to post an xray, Josephine is quite the expert at reading them. Hope you can get this resolved soon :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Any feedback is appreciated.
Hi and welcome to BoneSmart! I'll certainly do my best but I need something from you and that is a reasonably recent xray of your hip. You can post it in here for me.
 

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