Hip Replacement

[stumblor]

Incredible Geoff, but like everyone else I would want to be out cold. Reading about your recovery it strikes me how much we all take mobility for granted. I suppose anyone who has health or medical considerations that they have to live with everyday could relate to that, while the rest of us just blithely carry on as normal.

Really glad to hear you're on the mend, and back to fixing up misbehaving pin2dmds. Hopefully lots more of that to come soon.

 

[Moonraker]

Wishing you a speedy recovery Geoff!

 

[carl lawrence]

Wishing you well , take your time and do what the doc says and don’t be tempted to over do it ,all the best buddy !!

 

[Calimori]

Just had a little 1.4 mile walk around a local woods. Very slowly and with a crutch to be stable. Great to be in fresher air and watch the kid run about outside.
Now to see which muscles are unhappy but it generally felt ok.
Night pain is still my biggest barrier. 2 hours of sleep and then I need a different position or to get up.

Might play some pinball with the kid this afternoon as it is promising to rain.

 

[BigIan]

You will be back reffing fastbreak in no time ..

Had my leg smashed back in 2001, lizarov frame Etc
physio was really good and got me back on my feet and walking Without crutches or frame in no time (well 2 months or so after getting out of hospital). Only piece of advise I would give is talk and listen to a good physio, they really know what they are at (mine anyhow)

Had me on a mini trampoline whilst still on crutches and the frame still around my leg, scary and I would never have done it without the physios knowledge and encouragement, seemed counter intuitive to me (erm bounce on a smashed leg, don’t think so) would have been walking sooner but I also had a femoral nail in the top of my leg so needed to wait until bones had knitted up top before doing any load bearing. they had me over stretching My muscles to try and get full movement back in them, all fine now. Wouldn’t over stretch without talking to someone who is qualified in that sort of stuff.

They also trained my leg to use different leg muscles to control my knee as I basically lost all the ligaments in my right knee.
you would hardly know now, walking fine now

it felt like a long hard slog And getting nowhere fast but looking back on it it was only a handful of weeks and really fast progress in the end.

good luck and keep at it, even if it seems pointless, it’s not, you might not see any progress but others will

 

[Calimori]

Oh that sounds like a bad accident with your leg. A friend had something similar and it was hard for his large frame to get weight bearing.
I have been told before that having repairing bone moving a bit is good for sticking back together :/

 

[stoptap]

How is your recuperation going @Calimori ?

I wish I had seen this thread earlier. I am an engineer working at Leeds University in the Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.
We carry out research for DuPuy who make the implants. We run the implants (hip, knee and ankle) in simulators that mimic human movements and loads. The implants are then checked for wear.
Last year I designed and machined a fixture for holding femoral heads (the ball part of the joint) of an implant so that it can be tested in a human femur. The Dr leading the research was subjecting the implant to a load until the bone failed.
Very interesting work.

Speedy recovery mate.

 

[Calimori]

Hi

I am coming up to three months and it gets in the way less and less. There is some stiffness in the joint plus some twinges, socks and shoes remain an issue.
Most weekends we are walking 2-3 miles a day in a forest or National Trust type garden. I can lightly jog with my kid, and kick a football.
My back aches a lot more, I think everything is still settling but I don’t take pain killers and I feel like myself.
I had a Polar3 implant, is that one you have worked on? It has been hard to get a realistic lifetime expectation from the consultant, what can I expect if I try to look after it?

 

[stoptap]

The Polar3 is a Smith & Nephew implant so no idea mate on the lifespan of it. Modern implants though are miles better than they used to be. The longevity will depend on what liner you have in the cup.

We had a top hip surgeon from Queens hospital in Belfast visit last year and he gave a presentation on hip replacement surgery. It was a real eye opener when he discussed the accuracy of the bone cuts to accept the implant. As an engineer we generally work with a 0.05mm tolerance for our machining. He said some surgeons work to a 20mm tolerance !!
Alignment is a major area for improvement in the surgery.
Could you smell the bone cement when you had the surgery ? It has a very pungent smell.

 

[Calimori]

I didn’t detect the smell of cement but I failed to check if it was actually cement less. There was a lot of impact and discussion on the size of cup and I have no bone issues. I plan to write to the consultant and check.

 

[Wayne J]

As an engineer we generally work with a 0.05mm tolerance for our machining. He said some surgeons work to a 20mm tolerance !!

The difference between a carpenter and a surgeon?
A carpenter had to get the cut right first time

I buy all of the implants at Walsall Manor for theatres, including hips, (we use Stryker), the main reason we need to hold so many sizes is due to the initial cut not being guaranteed to be perfect.

Generally, they look at a minimum 10 years as a ballpark figure for implants based on a 'normal active life, but will change based on how much wear it gets. Once it does start to wear significantly, the next step would be a hip revision.

 

[stoptap]

The difference between a carpenter and a surgeon?
A carpenter had to get the cut right first time

I buy all of the implants at Walsall Manor for theatres, including hips, (we use Stryker), the main reason we need to hold so many sizes is due to the initial cut not being guaranteed to be perfect.

Generally, they look at a minimum 10 years as a ballpark figure for implants based on a 'normal active life, but will change based on how much wear it gets. Once it does start to wear significantly, the next step would be a hip revision.

When a patient gets a revision, we sometimes get the removed implants back for wear analysis. Fair to say that the removal isn’t a clean, meticulous process.

I get to see implants that are in development and not yet been made available for trial and use. The simulators we test them on are something else. The movement and loads they put the implants through is impressive. 6 at a time. I am currently working on two hip simulators that have been stood a while and are going back into service.