Walking without a hip joint

In a car accident I broke both hips and pelvis.
Right hip has had 5 hip replacements.I'm told no more bone left to replace a 6th.
I will be hipless.
Extreme concers of quality of life and issues like infections.
I was 19 now 60.
The pain is so intense I can hardly put any pressure on it.
Doesn't matter walking, sitting,laying. It's all painful. Sometimes a shooting pain flows through the outer thigh to hip area. When there is no movement at all.
There is no muscle mass. It's very weak.

Hi, I'm so sorry about your accident. I was in a similar situation except instead of a car accident, I have RA and suffered a terrible infection which eventually destroyed my left hip area. I could not stand on my hip and I was in very bad pain. My life pretty much stopped. I had girdlestone surgery about a year ago and the pain is gone for the most part. I can stand on the leg that no longer has a hip in it, which gives me hope that I will eventually be able to walk short distances on it using a walker as so many on this message board have been able to do. There is life after girdlestone.

I'm so sorry to hear what you have endured since 19. Have you had all the hardware removed from your hip at this point? I am 72 and 2.5 years post Girdlestone surgery, so I have no left hip joint and doing quite well. I only had one surgery due to massive infection and surgeon determined at that time I was not a candidate for revision due to extent of necrosis and osteomyelitis. I continue to do daily exercises to keep my leg and buttock muscles as strong as possible. I am able to walk with walker and crutches easily. I can do one crutch or cane for short periods and even able to take 50-100 steps unassisted in the house. I cook and clean up in the kitchen by holding onto counters, etc. I also ride upright exercise bike inside most days and have a tricycle I ride outside. I don't really have any pain now to speak of and very grateful for that. I live in Michigan. I'm wishing you all the best and I believe with determination you will have a good quality of life.......Cindy

@dzoneill I am sorry to hear of your situation and I can totally relate to your situation however mine came in a different form. In 2005 I was in a head on collision with a semi which caused my left hip to dislocate (along with numerous other traumatic injuries) they were able to put my hip back into place without surgery however a couple weeks later when doing physical therapy it became dislocated again. So the decision was made to put hardware in to try and stabilize it from dislocation, which worked until my femoral head became necrotic a year later . At that point they decided to do the first THR ...it was great ...but it only lasted two weeks and then I got Staph infection and it had to be removed. So then they put in a concrete hip spacer.. Needless to say we went back and forth like this 4 times over the course of 7 years ...everytime they put in a new hip I would eventually get MRSA/staph and they would remove it. Finally when hip replacement 4 became infected I was referred to Mayo Clinic .
Their recommendation was to take everything out and leave it out for at least a year. If I could go at least one year without infection they would try one last hip relplacement .
It was a long recovery process plus learning how to walk with a hanging hip but i actually stunned doctors a year later when i was walking without any assistive devices (i probably shouldve been using my cane at least lol) of course I had a major limp since my left leg was so much shorter but i made it work not only for one year but for 4 years!
Finally last year I went back and told them it was time, my lower back had been killing me so bad from my uneven gait.
June 6th I recieved my "Hail Mary" 5th total hip lol and I am so happy to say that so far (fingers crossed) i havent had any problems with infection. Im only 34 years old so I know its a life long battle but at this point in time thing are looking up!!

@dzoneill I'm so sorry to hear of all of your hip problems. From your post, it appears as if you have been dealing with this issue since you were a child. Congratulations on being infection-free. Overcoming those two infections had to be quite a task, I'm glad to see that you and your doctors were successful. Keep us posted on how your strengthening exercises are working for you. Moving to one crutch or a cane will be quite an amazing achievement. Best wishes! Teresa

Hey there, I am 38, male and had a shattered femur neck in okt. 2022, so I got emergency surgery where they screwed my femur neck together with a few pieces of metal like it´s a grade schooler´s shop homework.

Took me a while to get back on my feet again, and now it looks like one of the screws went a bit backwards and the whole thing sunk in a little, and the result is that my leg can´t move outwards in certain angles because the implant is limited space wise.

I have 2 different orthopedic doctors knowing ALL of my history and my drug use, one of which took 170 Bucks for 1 appointment, telling me "Yes, you most definitely need a full hip replacement."

And today I have this guy in the hospital where I wanted to get sliced up telling me "nah, you need to go back to the hospital where you got that shotty implant to take it out, we can´t do that here,
but if you come back afterwards or tell you to come here we can totally do it if we really need to..." (?)
(Most renowned University Clinic in all of austria ladies and gentleman)

And I have a feeling the conversation went south when I told him about my IV use of my medication, even tho 170 bucks for half an hour doctor told me it wouldn´t be an issue unless I shoot up in my legs, which I dont.

He also was like " We had a patient who got a hip replacement, used IV and we had to take it out because he got an infection, and now he lives with no hip joint.
Is that REALLY a thing or is he just bs-ing me?

Thank you for any answer!
Mfg. Mr.Socko

Hi I was beginning to think I was the only one without a hip. My 1st hip was done in 2012. I had Avn. I woke up screaming in pain and had a drop foot. The surgeon had cut 3 nerves. My tibial, peroneal and sciatica. I didn't get infection but I saw a neurologist for the excruciating pain. He did nerve conduction studies and told me I have RSD... REFLEX SYMPATHETIC DYSTROPHY SYNDROME. It was due to the mistakes made during surgery. There is no cure and I've never had pain so severe as this. I see a pain management Dr and I'm on methadone as well as I get ketamine infusions for the RSD. That is the only thing that helps me to deal with this disease. I'm atrophied up to above the knee and I can't be touched that's how bad it is. Ok then in 2015 I was told the other hip was necrotic as well. I thought long and hard about going through this surgery again but the pain of walking with a walker was more than I could stand so I had the surgery. It went well. I had pain but it was surgical pain. I expected that. I was good for about a year and a half and then woke up one morning screaming. I went to the ER and was admitted due to infection. I couldn't believe it. I'm here again with a hip issue. They removed the artificial hip and cleaned out the whole area and put in a spacer plus 6 weeks of IV antibiotics. I went to rehab. I was walking with a walker. At the end of the antibiotics 6 weeks later I'm still in the same pain. I told the Dr in rehab but I was sent home anyway I couldn't stand it anymore and again I was at the ER. I was right that pain was the infection. It never went away. The spacer was removed and again the whole area flushed and cleaned. The infection had gotten into the bone so I lost several inches off my leg and they put antibiotic seeds in and that was it. The surgeon mentioned getting a new hip replacement put in if I went 4 months without infection. I asked if I could live and walk without a hip and he said yes however he thought I'd be in a wheelchair since I don't have help from the other leg. I told him I'd rather be in a wheelchair than to take a chance of this happening again. I've been in a wheelchair since June had a drainage tube for 3 months until it got dislodged in the middle of transferring from the chair to the bed. Thankfully no infection since July. I'm now on doxicyclene to hopefully keep me from getting infections for the rest of my life. During these infections I have been on vancomycin which didn't work. I had mrsa which is very difficult to get rid of and is resistant to some antibiotics. Then I was put on doxicyclene.and merrapenum both very expensive antibiotics. I was on them for 7 and a half weeks. I'm now on daptomycin for life. I'm only 59 years old. I have osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes type 2, copd, hypothyroidism, and stomach problems as well. I developed a rash all over my body which a dermatologist did a biopsy and it came back as a drug allergy but to what I can't get an answer. I've had the rash almost instantly after starting the daptomycin. I was taking 100mg twice a day. I stopped taking one of them in hopes this horrible itchy rash would go away. I've had it since July and it still itches constantly. Mostly at night. Im so disgusted I can't even walk to the shower. I have to use a basin and get washed while I'm on the bedside commode. I scrub my body every day really hard so this rash doesn't give me another infection.. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Ty.

Hello! I currently have no hip joint or spacers. My hip replacement got infected then removed about a year and a half ago and with exercise I am able to walk with out a crutch. Of course I have a limp cause there’s about a 3 -3 1/2 inch length difference. I use a cane in public to help with the limp. But I can ride the bike walk up stairs it just took some work to get to this point but it’s possible!