Bit of background

Firstly I have to say I have no idea what a typical journey to hip replacement is like but I think it’s probably a bit rougher than mine’s been.  Mine goes back a bit but luckily hasn’t been a long road full of pain so I do recognise and am very grateful to some luck and private health care.

A bit over 4 years ago I was pretty healthy and fairly fit.  I did zumba and belly dancing, and went to the gym, mostly in an attempt to slim down for my wedding in October 2011.  But earlier on in that year I started getting some pain in my left hip.  I saw a physio at work and she diagnosed impingement, and got me doing some exercises.  The left hip didn’t get any worse but my right one did!  I developed pain in my groin which at times was really sharp and I had a lot of discomfort in my thigh to the point that driving more than about 30 mins was to be avoided, and I had to pack in the dancing and zumba.  I kept going to the gym on doctor’s advice but had to avoid anything twisty or which put too much bending.  Eventually the physio referred me to a consultant who examined me and sent me for MRI scans.  It seemed I had signs of impingement in both hips but also a labral tear (tear in the connective tissue in the hip joint) on my right side.  He tried me with steroid injections which hurt like hell and did bog all else, then it became clear I would go down the route of arthroscopy but just for the right hip – my leftie was playing nicely so he was happy to do just the one.

In the meantime my mobility had got a lot worse.  I was working 3 days a week at home and being driven in the other days.  I couldn’t drive far at all and couldn’t walk far without a stick.  My consultant had let me choose when I wanted my op and I held back until after our holiday...there was no way I wanted to risk missing my first cruise if recovery didn’t go so well!  So holiday came and went and then July 2012 saw me have the arthroscopy.  The good news was that there was significant pain relief after it.  The bad news was that I had a lot of osteoarthritic degeneration and couldn’t mend the labral tear.  They did a good clean up of all the ‘bits’ I had floating around which had been catching in the tear and causing the pain, but told me I would ultimately need hip replacement surgery, though he was reluctant to do that at my age (all of a sudden 48 was young!!) if my day to day life was OK.  To be honest it never was properly OK in that I had the odd ‘catch’ but more irritating was the discomfort on rotating my hip.  Which meant dancing and zumba were still out...and certain forms of...ahem...horizontal dancing were still painful.  But overall I managed OK.

Then over the past 18 months my workload has meant I do  lot of sitting down at the PC, exercise went by the wayside and things got more uncomfy.  I picked up doing my exercises, I re-started pilates but it was clear it was getting worse.  I had a couple of episodes where my leg gave way beneath me; I was getting a lot more ‘catching’ and pain in my knee was getting worse.  I decided to go back to check out what was happening and what my options were.   And that’s where things have happened pretty quickly.  I saw my GP on 9 November, who referred me back to the same consultant, Mr Hoad-Reddick at the Alexandra hospital in Cheadle.  I saw him on 25 November, half hoping he’d tell me I was too young and find some non-surgical way of curing me, but more realistically thinking he’d refer me back for an MRI and then we’d talk possible options.  Instead he sent me for an x-ray there and then, then back in his office afterwards we were looking at a picture of a hip in a rather sorry state.  My bone space has gone which means I have bone on bone, and also the top of my femur is growing outwards and that’s restricting mobility even more.  Next thing he’s there telling me the only realistic option is replacement and spelling out the risks (from being a bit sore and limping afterwards to death from pulmonary embolism!).  He left it with me to discuss with husband and at work and arrange for a date.  So having done both I then rang back on Friday  27^th Nov and booked myself in for Monday 15 Feb.  Which is just 10 weeks from today and suddenly seems very real and close and a little bit scary.