Upper Thigh Pain Months After Hip Replacement

Julie I am so sorry this is happening to you. They say you have to be pro-active in your own health care but it seems you are fighting a huge system. I wish there was such a thing as a health advocate for your situation.

I had a right hip replacement 8-9 months ago. Went fine, no problems. Until now. I had significant pain in right thigh - which has been mostly numb since thr. I don’t know whether the nerves are waking up and now I have pain or if it’s some other diagnosis? If the nerves are waking up, do I have this pain forever? It could also be osteoarthritis which I have, but it’s only on right side. Any thoughts from the hip replacement People?

It’s not an exact science but when I worked in EMG and nerve conduction in the 70’s -80’s, when a nerve was damaged but not severed,
My observation was that the nerve recovered - if it did recover - at the rate of about half an inch to an inch a month from proximal point to distal point. So in your case, is the point of injury at the surgical site about 9 inches from the point where you are getting new nerve sensations?

Again I have no idea if that makes a lick of scientific sense. Just an observation based on what I saw in patients with peripheral nerve injury.

You could talk with your doc about gabapentin which is specifically for nerve pain and see if that helps.

You are exactly right about nerve regeneration - when a nerve to my foot was damaged in knee surgery, it took 2 1/2 years to heal. When the nerve in my thigh was damaged by hip surgery, it took 2 years, and left one numb patch that still exists after 12 years.
Sue

I had a right hip replacement 8-9 months ago. Went fine, no problems. Until now. I had significant pain in right thigh - which has been mostly numb since thr. I don’t know whether the nerves are waking up and now I have pain or if it’s some other diagnosis? If the nerves are waking up, do I have this pain forever? It could also be osteoarthritis which I have, but it’s only on right side. Any thoughts from the hip replacement People?

Well that’s great to know .. I always believed it to be true but never followed a specific patient long enough to confirm. People move or change docs or give up so it just didn’t work out.

Curious - were your impacted nerves only sensory or did you have motor loss as well?

With the knee, I had motor loss - almost, but not quite, a drop-foot. Without the nerve feedback, I also had no clue where the foot was, so any uneven terrain - even my yard, was scary. This eventually resolved.
With the hip/thigh there was no motor loss. The most mystifying thing is that the numb area occasionally becomes quite painful to touch - whenever I have an inflammatory flare anywhere in my body.
Sue

It’s not an exact science but when I worked in EMG and nerve conduction in the 70’s -80’s, when a nerve was damaged but not severed,
My observation was that the nerve recovered - if it did recover - at the rate of about half an inch to an inch a month from proximal point to distal point. So in your case, is the point of injury at the surgical site about 9 inches from the point where you are getting new nerve sensations?

Again I have no idea if that makes a lick of scientific sense. Just an observation based on what I saw in patients with peripheral nerve injury.

You could talk with your doc about gabapentin which is specifically for nerve pain and see if that helps.

All the pain is in my groin. I’d say it’s about 4” from the top of the incision They tried gabapentin and it didn’t help at all, all it did was make me angry.