[pawperso]

Does anyone have any knowledge or experience with bones being 'shaved' to reduce the risk of pressure sores in the area.

When I had my accident I broke my hips and pelvis, the pelvis was an 'open book' fracture and I guess that it was pretty bad and didnt allow the surgeon to put it back together exactly as it had been before.

The right side of my pelvis is noticably displaced, about an inch forward and lower than my left side, meaning that if I am sat upright then ALL of my wieght is set on just my one side.

With wheelchair cushions and such this isnt a problem really.

But I ski a lot and its impossible to use a normal cushion in the ski, the base has to be firm so that I can control the ski with the movement of my upper body. But all this means that every once in a while I will get a small pressure spot and need to stop skiing for a week or so until it has dissapeared.

I have heard of some people having bones 'shaved' to reduce this problem but I have no idea if this would be possible on the pelvis, and to what extent, my right 'sitting bone' is a good inch lower than the left. That sounds like a lot of bone to 'shave' off.

Does anyone have any knowledge/experience at all.

Thanks

This post has been edited by pawperso: 24 February 2007 - 08:34 PM

[tc761]

I had a sore about 7 years ago. i had surgery to close the sore. post operation the doctor sat down and told me he shaved my hip bone to help me from have any sore in that spot in the future. iv had atleast 3 or 4 since then. so i dont know if it help or not for him to shave my hip bone. Now i deal with sitting slanted.

I dont know if that helped any, but atleast you can hear from someone that has had it done!

[pawperso]

Thanks.

Like I said, my right 'sitting bone' is a good inch lower than the left, so if I sit on anything flat and want to sit upright then I am just sitting on one bone, putting all my weight through it. To actually put weight on both sides I have to lean over to the left to such a degree that I actually fall over unless Im holding onto something!

Its kinda messed up and the last thing I want is a full blown sore, at the moment it looks like I may well have to completely stop skiing, pre-emptively, because of this, along with any hopes of getting on the GB Team and the 2010 Winter Games.

Do you know how much he shaved off, I think that shaving off a full inch sounds like a maybe too much to be taken off safely. I just dont know.

Obviously Ill talk to a doctor about it when I get back to the UK, but at the moment Im in Canada (trying) to train.

Thanks for the info.

[elisabeth]

Wow, I've never heard of that but it sounds like a logical idea. I've been having trouble with a pressure sore on my left butt cheek for quite some time now and spent ages in hospital last year and six months after being released from hospital I have come back in having the same sore treated. I only weigh around 120 lb (54.5 kg app) and the physiotherapist thinks it might have something to do with my bony ass, as well as some unexplained Osteomyelitis which I got before the pressure sore (long story!).

Anyway, my wound was debrided just over one week ago and they also shaved some of the infected bone down to try and stop the Osteomyelitis from reoccurring, and I have a wound vac at the moment just to clean up the wound some more before they do a skin flap (I don't know the fancy terminology!).

The fact that you have mentioned this is a great help to me and I will ask my consultant next time I speak to him if this is a good idea, because obviously I do not want to put on weight not just for health reasons but as a young female I want to remain slim and feel good about myself. There is nothing wrong with being just a little bit vain! Anyway, even when I have been chubby (overseas travel does it every time!) in the past my ass has remained bony so shaving the bone down might really help me and my situation, because I do have an awesome life outside of hospital and I want to damned well start living it instead of collecting frequent flyer points in the spinal Ward of this hospital!

I will definitely keep you updated on what my consultants says, and once again THANKS :-)

[pawperso]

Just an update on my ass problem, I found a company in the US who make amazing cushions and solved the problem for me, hopefully some other people will find it useful too.

I've written a post all about it on my BLOG.