Looking back, what would you do?

My first question is, is this pain interfering with your life? Is it limiting your activities and bumming you out? Assume you are an active person else you would not have posted here.

I got diagnosed with OA in L hip at age 46, which was a huge, depressing shock, as I saw my active lifestyle dwindling to nothing (shouldn’t have been surprising, as arthritis runs in my family). And really, joints just wear out. Evolutionarily speaking, our bodies haven’t kept up with our vastly increased longevity. The doc said it wasn’t anything I had done wrong, it just was what it was – a falling-apart hip. I decided to deny the (then moderate) pain and keep doing what I had been doing – running, hiking, climbing, skiing. I figured that all of these activities have some level of discomfort to them anyway, and hip pain was just one more thing to deal with.

I managed to keep up this charade for the next almost 4 years, progressively getting slower and more gimpy. Everyone noticed this but me, and anyone who mentioned it was simply ignored or snapped at. Denial is an amazing thing to behold. Frankly I was terrified of the surgery, the imagined long recovery, and being out of the game. So I tried to stay in the game, until I finally had to admit I couldn’t do it anymore. It was ruining my life, I was coming to dread physical activities because of the constant pain. I was taking a minimum of prescription NSAID and finally realized … it wasn’t ever going to get any better.

And that’s when I decided to have a THR. I found an excellent surgeon and medical team in my area, and took the plunge in August 2016.

I’ve never looked back. My 18-month (complete and total time for an active person) recovery was smooth as I did everything I was told, and gently eased back into all of my former activities. I was walking short distances within a week or two of surgery. What a joy to walk without pain again. I even started running again after 6 months and am now up to 30-40 trail miles a week. I’ll never break any speed records but I can run as fast and far as I like.

So far the other hip is fine, but if it starts to go downhill, I won’t wait nearly as long to deal with it. My only regret was in waiting so long to deal with the pain. I didn’t do myself any favors, as I had extra work to do un-learning all of the compensatory gait habits I’d been using to avoid pain.

Well, that’s my story. I hope you find it helpful!

Hi there,

About 12 years ago at age 50 I began noticing pain in my right hip, got an x-ray, and was diagnosed with hip osteoarthritis. I was still functional at most or all of my regular activites, so the orthopedic surgeon did not recommend immediate surgery, however he did note that my hip looked worse on x-ray than many others that he had replaced! I was advised by the surgeon, the sports medicine specialist, and the sports medicine physiotherapist to quit or substantially cut back on running to try to extend the life of the hip.

I was never a high mileage runner, but I continued running as before – 20 to 40 kilometres per week and one to several marathons per year. 10 years later I had another x-ray which showed complete loss of joint space in the hip and several manifestations of bone damage and flattening in the joint: the worst hip x-ray one specialist had ever seen! Surprisingly, my pain was still bearable, although getting worse, and I continued running, skiing, playing hockey, hiking, etc. right up until a month or two ago, 12 years after I was advised to cut out the running.

Perhaps I was lucky in that my hip OA progressed only slowly, and maybe for most people backing off on running would have been the wiser approach. However, at least one of my medical team thinks that by persevering with all my normal activities I maintained strength and some degree of flexibility in the joint, and that is why I have been able to delay hip surgery for so long.

The advantages in waiting as long as possible before getting surgery are, in my mind, as follows:
1. There is a small percentage of people with bad outcomes from hip replacement surgery, so it’s not something you want to rush into.
2. I was able to accomplish some personal running goals with my bad hip, including running the Boston and New York City marathons, and getting a personal best at the Portland marathon. I don’t think any of us can say with complete certainty whether we’ll be able and comfortable to run marathons post-surgery.
3. By delaying the surgery I won’t need revision surgery until an older age.

The disadvantages for me in waiting so long:
1. I have been living with a fair bit of pain, especially recently, that does not respond well to many types of pain medication nor to steriod injections.
2. By waiting so long I may have damaged the bone enough to make me a less suitable candidate for hip resurfacing (as an alternative to total hip replacement).
3. If one does get to the point of chronic limping it may weaken important muscle groups and slow one’s recovery from surgery.

With hindsight I would go for the surgery sooner, although I’m not as emphatic about that as Carolyn is in her reply. On the other hand, I would suggest carefully considering the history of your bad hip and the progression of pain before giving up all your much-loved activities too quickly.

One other note – I am in Canada where we have a wonderful public health care system but we can have very long waits for some types of surgery. I was expecting only a one year wait when I decided to go ahead with the surgery, which would have been fine, but now it is turning into a 2 year wait! If I’d known that I would have got into the queue a year earlier.

Good luck!

A

Gifford,
Just know that when the time comes, it won’t be the end of the world. You will be able to get back to all of the things you love to do (in time). Stay fit and keep your head up and when the pain becomes too much, make the move. 🙂

I was diagnosed at 40 and the first doctor told me I needed to have it replaced immediately. I got a second opinion and he told me that the damage is already done and if I wanted to carry on playing soccer I could. I managed to last another 5 years before I had to give up soccer and then waited 5 more years before I decided to have it done. By the end I was limping badly if I walked half a mile and just doing everyday activities were getting harder. Also just sitting down or lying in bed I would get this twinge and my body would jump. So just before my 50th I decided I was going to have it done that year. I scheduled it about 7 months later and worked on my fitness as best as I could leading up to it. After the operation I felt great and it’s been a pretty exciting ride ever since. I do wish I had done it earlier so I could see what I would have been capable of, but I’m pretty happy with what I’ve accomplished since then.

Great story! You definitely have come back, and more. This surgery is a home run, if you do it when the time is right for you. The “right” time for me was when it was starting become undeniable that something was very badly wrong.