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One detail that may be of interest to
your readers concerns a pain that I had after the surgery,
and what (with the assistance of Ms. Webb, Dr. Gross's nurse
and surgical assistant) I was able to do about it. Perhaps
this would fit on the Slow Recovery page. (I'd be happy to
provide a more explicit email, if that would help). Anyway:
About a month after the resurfacing of my left hip, I would
experience an excruciating pain on that side whenever I
would attempt to get up and walk after being in a deeply
seated position (as in a car seat or a low upholstered
chair). It would be very painful to take the first step. But
after taking 3 or 4 steps, the pain would disappear
entirely. This would happen each time. If I took the time to
stretch my left leg a bit after first getting up, it would
not be a problem. This went on for several weeks, and did
not seem to be improving. When I emailed Ms. Webb about it,
she said this was a fairly common observation and suggested
I look into a stretching exercise for the iliopsoas muscle
(which I had never heard of!). I found an exercise online
(http://www.bodyresults.com/E29090QPsoas.asp)
and started doing that stretch daily. I don't know whether
it was a coincidence or not, but within a few days that pain
started subsiding, and within a week or two it was
completely gone. I continue to do that stretch as part of my daily exercise
routine, and the pain never did return.
I can't tell you how indebted I feel to
Dr. Gross, Ms. Webb, and Midlands Orthopedics for restoring
my active lifestyle. I had always been active - biking,
skiing, tennis, lacrosse, etc. But, starting in 2002, I
began to develop severe osteoarthritis in my left hip, and I
was soon unable to run; even walking was painful. I thought
I was faced with a choice of a total hip replacement, which
- since I was in my 50s and used to being active - didn't
appeal to me at all, or increasing doses of pain medication,
which didn't really help very much. Fortunately, I found out
about hip resurfacing, and made arrangements to come to
South Carolina for that procedure. Within a few months of
the resurfacing, I began to ski again, and the following
summer I began playing tennis again. Two years after the
procedure, I now play tennis several times a week, with no
joint pain whatsoever. This procedure was absolutely perfect
for me!
Bob C.
I feel a personal mission to spread the word about hip
resurfacing, so I do whatever I can. I had the usual story:
my local orthopedic surgeon never even mentioned resurfacing
to me, he just said my choice was to continue pain meds for
as long as I could stand the pain or undergo THR (he used
the same phrase "gold standard" that most in-denial docs
do). I had to find out about resurfacing on my own (in my
case, there was the article in the AARP publication about
Dr. Stachniw
AARP ARTICLE
and - if I recall correctly - another article in the NY
Times, at about the same time, about people who went
overseas for surgery, and then - once I knew what to look
for - the explosion of information online and Peggy
Gabriel's book. I tried to buy time, while I located a
resurfacing doc and went through the insurance issues, by
volunteering for a clinical trial on the use of Synvisc in
hips, but was turned down because my cartilage was so far
gone there was no place to inject the Synvisc. Eventually, I
connected with Dr. Gross and Ms. Webb, and their office was
able to work the insurance issue. The rest, as they say, is
history. I have never had any regrets.
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