Category: Carl L’s Reports

In my last post in May, I was having some issues gauging where the balance should be between pushing myself and laying off some of the impact activities that were making me sore. Now just 3 months later it seems I have found that balance.

I’m still in love with my active lifestyle since the hip replacement. Since my last post I’ve gone hiking in the National Forrest of Arkansas, played several tennis matches, I continue to time and improve my mile time, and have even started picking up some old solo soccer drills.

The difference I have found over the last few months is my dedication to the gym. Although I work a desk job Monday through Friday I now go to the gym 7 days a week. Dedicating 2 days a week to legs only has been helpful. Squats have improved in weight almost 50% over the last few months. The extra strength seems to be boosting my performance threshold before I begin to feel any sort of pain!

I still have problems with lunges. That has to do with old scar tissue from my original core decompression surgeries. My toes curl up when I pull my full back towards my body. For instance, when kneeling the foot connected to the leg that is kneeling has tightly curled toes and hurts quite a bit. I’ve been told I can have surgery to release those tendons but it will lose the ability to move those toes anymore. I don’t feel like that’s necessary at this point.

Charging forward, I’m loving the progress. I haven’t felt any pain in quite a few weeks now, and I’m pushing harder every day. This “30 year” hip had me skeptical at first, but no more.

I can’t wait to see where I can go from here. Thank you all for giving me a place to share all of this. As a 27 year old I’m short of people in my tribe who can relate. Your feedback has encouraged me and motivated me to keep going forward.

All the best,
Carl… (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

My first and last post on this blog came 2 years ago. In short, I laid out my hip issues, the fact that I am young, 26 now, and where my hip pain originated. In March of 2015 I went under the knife and the journey has been…. interesting.

I had the surgery in Melbourne, Florida where a talented surgeon named Jack Perry undid the graft performed a decade prior, then proceeded to successfully secure my new hip in place. Although it ended up being a 4 hour procedure due to the extra steps involved, he was very proud of the work he had done (in typical surgeon form). Equally impressive was the fact that he’d been able to use the anterior approach the whole time as well.

The prosthetic he used was an American made (I forget the brand, but not Stryker) metal stem with ceramic and polyethylene incorporated in some way as well. It is a short stemmed prosthetic and is estimated at 30 years of use! I have my doubts about that but this 26 year old can dream.

After dealing with all of the normal surgery woes (tingling limbs, groggy feelings, etc) I began PT right away. After 5 days I could work from my desk for limited periods of time and after 8 days I could take a few steps without a cane. I didn’t push any harder than the PT and the doc recommended, but I exceeded expectations in most areas. I’m sure many of the fine, highly motivated folks on this forum have experienced similar results. So far so good!

After about 2 months I was able to go for some pretty long walks without any pain. And I was in shock of how different it felt to walk without chronic pain. It was like I had lived half of my life blind and was given the gift of vision. All I wanted to do was everything I felt I had missed out on over the previous 10 years, but patiently I waited and gradually increased the load.

I began to jog for … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)

Hi everybody. My name is Carl, and I’m 24 years old. When I was 14 I was diagnosed with Leukemia, which resulted in my taking of various medications including a few different anti-inflammatory steroids (e.i. prednisone, dexamethasone). From this I developed Avascular necrosis in both hips and at age 15 underwent core decompressions with fibular grafting in both hips. At the time the ortho told me that the surgeries were only band-aids, meant to delay the eventual hip replacement. My right hip turned out beautifully, the left not so much. There is a bit of collapse on the ball joint and it has limited me since the day of the surgery.

I’d like to take you back to 2004 though. Before my diagnosis, I was a soccer player. I loved basketball and long distance running. At 5’10” I weighed 140lbs and could run for days. Now I am 6’0″ and weigh 190lbs. I wish I could say I had put on muscle weight, but I’m simply out of shape. After 10 years of not being able to run or do any meaningful cardio exercise due to pain (even swimming and stationary bike hurts), I’m in horrible shape. Every single day, I dream of running. Just starting and going as far as I can, down the road, on and on.

The pain has finally gotten to the point in my left hip that it is time to do the replacement. I was hoping to make it a little farther than age 24, but I’m tired of hurting. You can bet that I’m going to be running on the new hip too. This website became an inspiration to me the first time I was on it.

I currently live in FL, but I will probably go back to my home state of TX for the surgery. From my previous Odyssey through the medical world I made a few connections and found some great specialists. I don’t have my timetable yet for getting the procedure done, but I’m hoping to have that soon. In the mean time I’ll be reading through everyone else’s … (Click Here to View Full Post and Comments)