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← Return to Walking without a hip joint
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Bones, Joints & Muscles | Last Active: 3 hours ago | Replies (515)
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Hi Cindy, from most of the comments I've been reading the prognosis have not been good. My 39 yr old son was born with osteomyelitis and has no hip/spacer on the left side of his body. Dr's at 2 yrs old decided to take what was left of the femur fuse it on a 30 degree angle. He also has about a 3 inch discrepancy in length. I encouraged him to look into seeing what could be done to give him more mobility in hopes of improving his quality of life. But after reading all these comments with people contracting multiple infections and having to have multiple procedures I'm not sure it's a good idea. We are located in NJ.
Replies to "Hi Cindy, from most of the comments I've been reading the prognosis have not been good...."
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Hi A Jordan.....I'm so sorry to read this about your son and what he has endured his entire life! I'm 72 years old and it's been hard for me to adjust with such a disability. I have chronic osteomyelitis and was on lifelong antibiotics and getting around quite well with walker and crutches. Stupid of me, but I decided to go see a revision specialist to see if maybe I could get another hip, even though surgeon who did original surgery said 'never'. I had to go off my oral antibiotics for a month, then plan was to get hip aspiration to check for infection and then decide from there as they wouldn't operate if I was already infected. I only made it 2 weeks off antibiotics and my infection was raging again, ended up in hospital for 5 days, and now PIC line at home with IV antibiotics for 6 weeks. I'm weak on that side and only able to toe touch with walker at this time, but I'm praying I can get back to where I was before and I will accept that. I was even riding adult tricycle outside and exercise bike inside the home. My husband makes my shoes for me by adding extra soles to bottom to even out my legs. I'm about 2.5 to 3 inches shorter on the left. May I ask, how does your son get around? Walker, crutches???? Is he on life long antibiotics? I'm a retired nurse and never really thought about this type of thing until it happened to me. I'll say a prayer for your son.......Cindy