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I have had both hips resurfaced by Dr. Harlan
Amstutz—the left on 5/14/02 (using the hybrid Conserve Plus system)
and the right on 3/4/10. On the latter, both the femoral and
acetabular components were uncemented. I am only the third patient
on which Dr. Amstutz has used an uncemented femoral component.
Saw Dr. Amstutz yesterday in LA. He had a whole
battery of x-rays taken of both hips. He says the right one, the one
with the uncemented femoral cap, looks good. But he wants to be
cautious. So he restricted my activity to walking and the stationary
bike. We’ll have another set of x-rays taken in 4 weeks. If those
are fine, it’s my hope that Dr. Amstutz will expand the category of
permissible activities (e.g., I’d like to start biking—road and
mountain). As I indicated below, there are two other patients with
uncemented femoral caps. Both are about 10-11 weeks post-op (I’m 6
weeks today). He’s being cautious with them as well. Dr. Amstutz’s
development of the Conserve uncemented femoral cap is an interesting
story—one that he should tell (you might want to interview him). By
the way, my left hip (the resurfacing was done just short of 8 years
ago) looks and feels great. Before my deteriorating right hip put a
crimp in my activity level, I was running, mountain biking (in
Colorado) and skiing every kind of run Steamboat Springs has to
offer. So I was not holding back any on the activity level to which
the left hip was exposed. To put this all in perspective, I
developed osteoarthritis in my left hip in my 40s. I was running
sub-3 hour marathons at the time. I scaled back my running, but
didn’t stop, and added a heavy dose of mountain biking. I found out
about Dr. Amstutz in 2001 and he resurfaced the left hip in May 2002
(at age 55). I’m now 63 and looking forward to resuming all of my
former activities, including running. Ted
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