Hip replacement pain

I had my anterior total hip done 3.5 years ago and still have back and leg pain with problems walking, tingling, weakness, foot swelling, stumbling, walk against the wall, use the shopping cart so I don't fall, maybe peripheral neuropathy (waiting to get EMG.) I saw the surgeon at the beginning and all he'd tell me everything is fine and nothing to do. I am going to a podiatrist as someone on this discussion group brought up. He's the first one to do the EMG. My primary doc just walks out of the room with nothing to offer. I may go and see a doctor in the group I went to for the surgery as I heard he works with the screw-ups from this surgery. I wish I hadn't had the anterior approach. Good luck.

@daisy22 my wife as well had multiple hip surgeries, both interior and exterior. The hips after 6 replacements seem to work fine according to her. However, she continues to suffer from lower back pain and a lot of numbness. She was 52 when she had total bilateral and it has been 14 years! What I see is that her orthopedic surgeon specializes specifically with hip joint replacement, nothing much to do with scar tissue and/or nerve damage. In fact when my wife came out of surgery she was black and blue from head to toe and I mean everywhere including her shoulders and breast. She can hardly walk and always uses a grocery cart when in a store to hold onto; her elbows sometimes bleed from the constant leaning on them. The pain she was suffering prior to surgery is nothing compared to what she experiences daily now. There are times that she will offer for a little intimacy which is hard on both of us because of the pain one goes through for a (little) enjoyment. Nonetheless, she seems to find it to be a bit of a tension reliever. As we travel on in life we both have to find ways to find what comfort we can daily. There is a lot to be said by the power of our minds. When one is in pain there are times that pain becomes quite intense yet a few minutes of intimacy seem to relieve the intensity for quite a period of time. I am only using this as an example to point out the power of one’s mind; visiting grandchildren, shopping, a brief visit at a casino….all of these things help relieve anxiety and pain and when not enjoying these things the pain is Always worse! That being said, first and foremost, be your best advocate, blood work to rule out infections, Cobalt / Chromium and staph infection; to which my wife had had all over the corse of this past 14 years. We knew something was not right from her first surgery and her primary orthopedic surgeon declined expressing that it was all a healing process and a weak drive on my wife’s part. I was working full time yet trying to assist my wife where I could, they had her on heavy narcotics for over 9 months until I felt enough was enough! Requested blood work, staph infection along with extremely toxic levels of cobalt and chromium poisoning. To this day, if we could go back in time I’m thinking she never would of had the initial surgery. Honestly, from what I see, try and find something that you constantly look forward to and something that you enjoy and try to focus more on that and less on the pain, pain is very controlling! At the same time Be A Strong Self Advocate if you sense something wrong, you know your body better than any doctor! Good luck!

And I had the opposite experience. A left hip replacement almost three years ago. No post surgical pain at all. never touched a pain pill.

Most of it comes down to doing extensive research and finding a truly skilled surgeon. You can start with ratings (e.g., my local magazine does an annual doctor rating issue based on survey with other doctors) but I believe one needs to go well beyond that.

My criteria were:

Newest and best method
Extensively and successfully experienced in that method
Great mind
Great hands

I found one in Jimmy Chow. He is the prime inventor of the "superpath" method of hip replacement (IMO the successor to the anterior approach). Nonetheless, despite being an engineer/inventor, he told me that of all the requirements for finding a great surgeon, extensive successful experience is the most important. If it came down to a choice between a surgeon who has done hundreds of anterior or even posterior hip replacements, but has only recently transitioned to superpath and has only done about 20 of them, my Superpath inventor would recommend going with the experienced surgeon using a lesser method.

My brother and I both were scheduled for knee replacements in around the beginning of the month. He is in the midwest aand went with a highly rated traditional knee surgeon. He was bone on bone but with no significant misalignment or pain. I had severe misalignment and pain from a nerve impingement caused by the bad knee. I went with Dr. Chow. I wanted a minimally painful replacement that would not unnecessarily cut and resect my ACL (i.e, a bicruciate retaining implant--BCR). I found a video of Dr. Chow doing exactly what I wanted in 2020 at an orthopedic innovations conference. He did a BCR and a "Functional Alignment" and I had almost no post surgical pain (minor pain when I first stand up from the surgical site area that mostly abated when I walked about twenty feet or so). My brother's surgery was five days before mine and he is on opions and Journavax.

My point is do tons or research. After you have done that, do tons more. All surgeons are not created equal. Feces can still happen but you can minimize its chances by finding the needle in the haystack (I am not sure that there are more than a handful of surgeons in the country that I would have trusted to do a BCR for me). So try to find that needle.

In general, hip replacement surgery is very successful. But the law governing bell curves still applies. My goal is to move myself as far as possible to the positive side of the bell curve. If one is in pain, I would encourage that person to get replacement surgery; but I would also recommend that that person do the kind of research I am talking about to maximize the chances of a successful outcome.

As to fixing it, there is a term used for orthopedic surgeons who repair problems that come up: "revision surgeon". Revisions are generally more complex than the original so not all orthopedic surgeons do revisions. Of those that do, not all do it well or often.

I would look for a skilled and experienced revision surgeon. For example, Dr. Chow does about 20% of his work on revisions. That doesn't mean that the original work that he is having to revise was faulty. Some of it likely was faulty but much of it is also bad luck.

If it is possible, I would look for a revision surgeon at a different practice. I wouldn't want to trust a surgeon in the practice group to accurately state that his colleague screwed up.

Thank you for your support. I haven't been checked for toxic levels but
will ask the surgeon. When I ask my doctor anything relating to the hip or
leg, she just walks out of the room so I take it upon myself to see
specialists and not ask her. That's why I'm looking for a new doctor in my
network.