Were you overpromised with your hip replacement?
Welcome back to The Hip Replacement Podcast.
Now, I don't know about you, but when I was looking into having a hip replacement long time ago, uh more than first, the first one was more than 13 yearsish now.
I never got any bad information. I never got any horror stories. Everything I heard painted a very rosy picture from the three different surgeries I three different surgeons I spoke with the friends that I had who had relatives who had their hips replaced.
Everybody's telling me I'd be up in my back on my feet quickly. I would love that I had it done. that I would have wished I had done it earlier and that everything would be fine. It would be great. That's all I ever heard.
I didn't hear the risks. I didn't hear that I would have stiffness in my legs. I didn't hear that 10 years later, 5 10 years later, I would still have aches and pains that needed to be addressed. I didn't hear any of that.
Was I overpromised?
I don't know. We'll get into more of that. But anyway, don't get me wrong. This having the hip replacement was way better than living with the hip pain.
And I think that my surgeon and therapist did exceptional jobs. But there could be still a very successful surgery and still have complications later on.
And this is nowhere near a onetoone replacement for a good natural hip.
Would I ever decide to have a hip replacement and put in metal and ceramic components and remove my real hip if it did if it didn't have an issue? Absolutely not. Because it's not a onetoone replacement.
It's not a onetoone comparison. Things go wrong even in great outcomes.
But again, in almost all cases, having the hip replacement is better than living with the current hip pain. And that's been my experience.
I couldn't walk very far. I was in constant pain. I didn't know how I would help my wife or take care of my kids. I exhausted what I thought were all the other treatment options. So, I decided to have the hip replacement surgery.
But it would have been nice to hear some guidance on the complications or the issues that may came up may come up a year, two years, 5 years, 10 years later. I didn't hear any of that.
So, it's pretty easy to be overpromised when looking into a hip replacement surgery, even though everything can go as planned.
So, I was told that, you know, like recovery would be easy. And most people go into a hip replacement expecting very little pain, a fast recovery, and then all their problems would disappear. Like it's a magic pill.
And this can make, the problem with this is that this can make normal challenges, things that happen to hip replacement patients, even small things, it can make it feel like something is wrong.
For example, it may be hard to sleep. You may have some aches and pains. You may have tightness in your IT bands, tightness in the groin. All of these things may be normal, but they're not really spelled out and they're not really brought to light that much at the beginning of the process before the hip surgery.
Of course, you probably saw the list of the paragraph or the pages of the warnings and everything, but the actual impact of the hip replacement surgery and the small things that can go wrong that need to be addressed even in a successful surgery. There's not much talk about that.
All the weight, all the conversation seems to be about you'll be back up in no time. Don't worry about it. It'll be the best thing that's ever happened to you. It'll be the best decision you ever make. I find all of that to be a little bit lofty.
So maybe I was overpromised. Who knows?
But I like the outcome so far. And it's easy.
When someone says it's easy, that's often meant to be as a form of encouragement. Okay? When someone says, "My friend had it," and they were back up walking around in no time. Or the surgeon says that you'll be able to do whatever you want later. You'll be able to run, you'll be able to walk, you'll be able to hike, you'll be able to weightlift, you'll be able to do whatever you want to do later.
You may be able to do a certain form of that, but most likely not to your previous standards, but there's exceptions. I feel like I was an exception. I've had a great outcome.
But when someone says it's easy, it's often meant for encouragement because when you're staring down a barrel of a hip replacement surgery, it can be pretty darn scary.
And hearing that it was easy or that the recovery was quick is a type of reassurance. And I think a lot of times it's there to help people not be too scared.
But unfortunately that message of it's easy doesn't always tell the full or realistic story.
Speaking of stories, success stories seem to dominate the conversations.
There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of hip replacement surgeries every year. There's last count there was 500,000 a year in the US alone and there's other countries that have a lot of them throughout Europe, Australia.
Okay. So there in many other countries, there's a lot of hip replacement surgeries. We can't possibly talk to everybody or collect data on everybody.
So when you hear someone talk about how great it was, how great the outcome was, maybe we should be taking that with a grain of salt because it's a very small population of what the actual outcome could possibly be.
We hear plenty of stories about people recovering quickly and getting back to life and much or we hear stories on the total opposite end about severe problems.
But we don't hear a lot of stories in the middle. We don't hear about yeah my surgery went okay but I have this I have back pain. I have sleepless nights. I have s small setbacks. I have frustration. I have slower than expected progress.
To a certain extent, we hear that, but we're not getting the big picture. We're not hearing that before surgery.
It's easy to hear that it'll be an easy recovery. Everyone recovers quickly. People recover quickly. My relative recovered quickly.
You'll do fine. You've got nothing to worry about. That's more of what we hear.
A successful hip replacement can still involve a difficult recovery.
Someone can struggle for weeks or months and still ultimately have excellent results because a successful surgery and an easy recovery are not the same thing.
You know, a great surgery is the components go in exactly as expected, but that doesn't mean new pain is completely removed. That doesn't mean that's not going to cause new muscle issue, new soft tissue issue.
There's other things that come up that there's just too much to talk about, too much to cover prior to a hip replacement surgery to go into these little details.
And frankly, it's quite possible that if someone had a discussion about all these little aches and pains and all these issues, they would seriously reconsider moving forward with the surgery. And that's not really what anyone wants.
The patient certainly doesn't want that. The surgeons don't want that. The physical therapists don't want that. Maybe the patient's family doesn't want that.
So, it's easier to deliver a message of hope, deliver a message of you'll be okay, deliver reassurance, deliver confidence, deliver some good examples so that people move forward. But there's going to be some challenges later.
And those challenges really don't get talked about too much early on. And a lot of times, unfortunately, those challenges may never even be brought up.
I have a lot of friends, for example, surgery or not, they will not open up about the challenges that they're having. It's only years later when things have gotten so bad, whether it's financial, whether it's physical, whether it's relationship, that they finally speak up.
So, we as human beings, we have a an issue with pride. We have an issue with being vulnerable.
We have an issue of telling people the challenges that we have. We want to project a more confident image than what may really be going on inside.
So the challenges that someone may be having are not coming out as often as they probably should be.
Also, recovery is not a straight line.
You don't get better all the time by day 10 than you were on day one. You don't get better linearly, okay?
You get better, you get worse. You get better, you get worse. You get better, you get worse. Think about the stock market. It's up, it's down. It's up, it's down.
But over the long term, it's up. But on any given day, it could be up or down. That's what recovery is like.
There's good days that can be followed by bad days. And progress can come in waves. Overdoing it can sometimes cause a temporary setback.
So when someone says to you, when someone says to a hip replacement patient, everything will be fine, it'll be easy, maybe they're taking a broader, longer term approach.
So, if your quality of life before hip replacement surgery is at a one because you're in pain, you have limited mobility, you don't want to do things because of the hip, and you're eventually going to make it somewhere to a six, seven, or eight.
It doesn't go from a one to a two to a three to a four. Your quality of life does not go linearly like that. It may go up to a two, down to a one, up to a five, down to a three. Okay?
It goes up and down, but over time, the long-term outcome will be better than your current situation with the hip.
And if we only focus on the parts where we're having setbacks, it may certainly feel like we've been overpromised, that maybe the hip replacement was a mistake.
Another thing to consider that the new hip doesn't instantly fix everything around it.
You have new components in there, but those muscles, your strength, your balance, your flexibility, your movement patterns, your endurance, your energy, your confidence, that's not been replaced.
So, all of those things are going to need some time and some work to rebuild.
So, when someone says it's an easy recovery or you'll be doing fine, they might mean that hip, but there's a whole lot of work that needs to be done to get you to a great result.
Another problem with feeling like there's this issue of being overpromised is comparing your recovery to someone else, which can be very harmful. Every person starts from a different place.
So everyone's recovery timeline and the extent of their recovery should be their own. A success story should be used for inspiration, not as a standard for where you think you should be.
So if prior to your surgery, you heard great anecdotal evidence that the surgery will have a great outcome, that person is different than you. You may have a better outcome. You may have a worse outcome.
Some days may be better for you. Some days may be worse. I certainly have had great days and bad days.
Fortunately, I've had a lot more great days than I've had bad days. And I think I've had what I would consider a textbook recovery over the last 10, 12, 13 years.
What would be helpful when people are going into a hip replacement surgery and having discussion and learning about it and doing their due diligence is to have more of an honest and complete conversation about hip replacement and being realistic about the possible challenges.
That doesn't mean hearing the challenges doesn't mean we're being negative, but it means helping people prepare physically and mentally for what's about to happen.
Telling somebody or hearing as a patient that the recovery will be fine. It's no big deal. You'll be back up on your feet quickly may not do them the best justice.
It may help them get over the line, but it may not prepare them for what they're about to embark on, which could be years long recovery process, certainly months.
But if they want more out of life, if they want to feel as good as they possibly can, it's a yearslong process and frankly an everyday process after hip replacement surgery.
There's not a day goes by where I'm not stretching or doing something to take care of my muscles around my legs and my hips and my back. No one told me about that before surgery, but it's an opportunity to take care of myself.
So, it's sort of a blessing in disguise. Taking care of my hips is helping me take care of my body and health overall.
So, how can we address this concept or the threat of being overpromised?
Three quick points.
Go into hip replacement hopeful but realistic.
Even with a great surgery, even with great physical therapy, the real result is that you're going to need some work still.
If you want to feel great, if you want to fend off aches and pains, there's maintenance.
So I consider the initial recovery, the rest, then the initial recovery that to be the initial recovery to be the first few weeks and then the recovery to be six months to a year and then after that maintenance.
Maintenance of the body, maintenance of the hips, maintenance of the muscles. you have something mechanical in there. Now, just like an engine, just like anything mechanical, it's going to need to be tuned up and addressed and taken care of.
And that means keeping the muscles flexible around it so that the mechanical components work as best they can for the longest period of time.
also helping to overcome this com over overcome this issue of being overpromised is focus on your own progress instead of someone else's timeline.
Use that as motivation as inspiration not as a gauge of whether you're ahead on time or behind in your recovery. Everybody's different.
Number three, expect some challenges.
When hearing about a hip replacement surgery, we hear about all the problems it's going to solve, all it's going to do to give us our life back, all it's going to do to get rid of the pain.
Expect some challenges along that path.
Expect you're going to have to put in some work. You can do this.
Stay patient and speak with your healthare team, your surgeon, your physical therapist, anyone else in your health care team when something feels wrong.
So, I'd like to hear from you.
Were you overpromised regarding your hip replacement? Were you told it would be something great, something that solved problems, and it's been less than that?
Were you surprised at how there were times when it was more difficult than you expected than you were told about? I'd like to hear about that.
Maybe told you maybe people told you it'd be easier than it actually was.
Maybe people told you it would be faster than it actually was. Maybe people told you it would be more pain-free than it actually was.
So, send in a comment. I'd love to hear from you and I'm sure it would be helpful to everyone else watching or listening.
And if you're watching on YouTube, tell us your answer in the comments below. What's one way that the hip replacement was overpromised?
If you're watching on YouTube, again, tell us in the comments below.
And if you're listening on a podcast platform, go to the show notes, click on the link to the podcast page, and send me a message through the contact form. I'd love to hear from you and I'm sure it would be helpful to other people.
Thanks so much for tuning in to The Hip Replacement Podcast. Until next time, I wish you the best recovery possible.
Take care.
