[Martythemutt]

has any body had a hip replacement?l may have to get l soon.can anyone help

[Kwag_Myers]

I haven't had one yet. I was two weeks away from having my first hip done when I had my SCI. I have displacia in both hips and the bone is starting to die out.

[Martythemutt]

Kwag_Myers, on Sep 21 2008, 02:05 PM, said:

I haven't had one yet. I was two weeks away from having my first hip done when I had my SCI. I have displacia in both hips and the bone is starting to die out.

[disjointed]

Kwag_Myers, on Sep 20 2008, 10:05 PM, said:

I haven't had one yet. I was two weeks away from having my first hip done when I had my SCI. I have displacia in both hips and the bone is starting to die out.

was your hip dysplasia congenital?
if not, how did your hips end up like that? mine have gotten so bad I have a hard time walking, and I'm waiting for better health insurance to get some tests and treatment. in the past, they said it was just secondary to my lower back problems and what they call sacroiliac dysfunction, though neither docs nor reading have gotten me clear on exactly what that means...

This post has been edited by disjointed: 23 September 2008 - 02:47 AM

[Martythemutt]

so what are they doing about the situation? are they going to replace your hips?

[Kwag_Myers]

disjointed, on Sep 22 2008, 10:39 PM, said:

was your hip dysplasia congenital?

Yes.

Martythemutt, on Sep 23 2008, 03:03 AM, said:

so what are they doing about the situation? are they going to replace your hips?

My mobility is so limited now that I don't walk enough to irritate my hips. I can still have my replacements done, but I’m waiting until I get past the medical bills from my SCI. It’s been a year and I’m still paying for tests, etc. every month.

[Kerry & Steve]

Hi My name is Kerry - my husband is Steve - we live in New Zealand. Steve had a spinal injury 8 years ago - injury at C4/C5. He is incomplete teraplegic - able to walk with a crutch (unbelievably) and the aid of a baclofen pump inserted which administers the drug directly into his spinal cord. He has very little or no feeling from the chest down. He uses a flip flop tap directly from his catheter instead of tryin to walk with a legbag.
He has had a clicky hip for about a year - but as he had no feeling was not too much of a problem - but then spasticity set in about 6 months ago - probalby because of nerve pain - and now the pain is so bad he can feel it.
He is at the hospital today being assessed for hip replacement in two weeks time - there does not seem to be anyone else we know with the same condition and how it turned out - so we will keep in touch with anyone that is interested with the outcome - and it would be great to hear from anyone who has had this done.

[Murray]

I'm a T6 incomplete T11 complete, 4 yrs post, 62 yrs, good upper body strength, good general health. Took a tumble out of my w/c Mon, 11/10. A hard one. Doc said the hip (right) was "blasted". Had swelling in upper thigh, went to ER, had doppler work cause I tho't it was DVT - related. Back to ER yesterday per my primary's instructions for x-ray panel. Osteoperosis will not allow traditional pin-plate treatment (not to mention pressure sores). Gamma knife's another option, but I went with "leave-it-alone-wait-and-see". I had never had an AD attack. That was hell!

Wanted to know if anyone out there has done the gamma knife treatment?

Gimme a holler. Thanks.

Lynn

[dprite]

Martythemutt, on Sep 20 2008, 07:49 PM, said:

has any body had a hip replacement?l may have to get l soon.can anyone help

So Marty did you have your hip replaced? I have a broken one...

[josiejose]

Hi everyone - I'm really keen to hear whether anyone with paraplegia tetraplegia/quadriplegia had a successful hip replacement/THA for whatever reasons. I've done what literature research I can do and discovered that for femoral neck fractures, hip dysplasia, osteonecrosis or spastic hip dysplasia, hip replacements can be done (and have been done) on paras. I don't know about quads.

I have a congenital SCI of sorts, a T8ish incomplete (T10 but I get AD, who knew!?). My hips dislocated at 9 years of age, they tried to relocate the first one but when the 2nd dislocated a year later, they gave up. I had no pain until age of 27, and even then, not much. It was my physiatrist that first theorized that the reason I had increasing spasticity on my right side (that was keeping me awake) was the dislocation. I had two injections of cortisone into my hip space which made it feel AWESOME. Nothing has ever helped like that did, but sadly you can't keep doing them. Two years later I woke up one day last year and thought I'd broken my hip, it hurt so much. It's pretty much been the same ever since. Scans showed that I have osteonecrosis (the bone in my femoral head has died due to lack of blood supply) and my femoral head has formed a "pseudoacetabulum" outside of my hip socket that is grinding bone to bone.

The main way to treat osteonecrosis is a hip replacement, but when you have paralysis the current medical thinking is that the hip prosthetic is at too great a danger of dislocation. In my research, and according to the pediatric ortho who's treated me for years, this is BUNK. The only alternative the adult orthos have given me thus far is a Girdlestone procedure, which is essentially disfiguringly gruesome surgery that doesn't even fix the problem. It's an amputation of the top of the femur (losing up to 5" of your leg length!) and creating a fake hip in your socket with the rest. I think this is ridiculous, and my pediatric ortho has helped me find an adult ortho who has done hip replacements before in people like me.

What you need, apparently, is a CONSTRAINED hip replacement - it's a prosthetic that has a sort of "collar" around the socket so that the ball part doesn't get dislodged. it's perfect for paraplegics because you don't need 100% of your range of motion to sit and lie down and transfer, you just need most of it, and the constrained hip replacement allows that while protecting the joint.

Apparently, people with cerebral palsy faced this sort of mindset from surgeons 20 years ago when they started getting to adulthood and experiencing hip problems. At first surgeons thought that it would be bad to do total hip replacement on people with spasticity, but when they tried it out, it's turned out to work very well. I think this is the sort of bias we are facing as people with paralysis. There really is no good proof that hip replacements are more risky for people with paralysis, especially if you're using a constrained prosthesis, but the medical establishment was educated in a certain way and there haven't been enough cases to change their minds.

Anyway - I would REALLY be interested to hear from anyone who has had a hip replacement as a para or quad, or had the girdlestone procedure. please email or message me!!