Hip

Why does my hip hurt?

The hip joint is a ball and socket joint. The surfaces of the two bones (femur and pelvis) in contact are covered in cartilage, a very slippy material. This allows the joint to move easily. Overtime the cartilage becomes worn and the underlying bone is exposed this then makes the joint stiff to move and causes pain. If left the joint may become so stiff that it may not move at all. Pain is often felt in the groin area but can be felt in the knee and, or buttock area (referred pain).

In the early stages of arthritis people try painkillers and physiotherapy. However when the pain becomes unbearable then the only option is a replacement joint.

Results of the joint replacement in the UK National joint Registry can be viewed here.

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Pelvis
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Marathon acetabular cup
Marathon acetabular cup

How can Mr Cope help me?

There are several options for replacement available depending on your age, activity and quality of bone. For the majority of patients, I implant an uncemented Corail total hip replacement. The Corail hip has been implanted in over 700,000 people and has two and a half decades of clinical success. On the National Joint Register, it has a 97% survival at 8 years.

The majority of my patients will have minimally invasive surgery and a cut that is typically 10cm (previously was 25cm), however, this is dependant on your body shape. I will not compromise the longevity of your implant to give you a small scar. I believe that this approach whilst giving you a more discrete scar also allows for a quicker recovery as there has been less damage to your soft tissues.

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The theatre team

Complications of surgery

The majority of patients (95%) have a successful outcome with no problems; however, surgery does have risks associated with it. Some patients will have higher risks depending on the previous diseases they suffered from. These include:

Major Medial Problems
  • cardiac disease
  • diabetes
  • previous stroke
Severe Respiratory Disease
  • previous blood clots
  • deep vein thrombosis (DVT)
  • pulmonary embolism (PE)
Medications
  • anticoagulants
  • steroids
  • immunosuppressants
Previous Joint Surgery
  • fracture fixation
  • previous infection
  • previous joint replacement
The risks to all joint surgery are:
  • Medical (heart attacks and strokes) (see above)
  • Infection of new joint requiring removal (less than 1%)
  • Deep vein thrombosis (blood clots) (2-3%)
  • Fatal pulmonary embolism (blood clot goes to the lung) (0.2%)

All joint replacements are artificial and as such can wear out sooner than expected leading to another (revision) operation. There are also risks specific to the individual procedure, which includes:

Hip Replacement
  • Dislocation (less than 1%) leading to further surgery on occasions.
  • Leg – length discrepancy (1%) sometimes a shoe insert is needed to correct this.
  • Fracture of the thigh bone (0.02%)
  • Sciatic nerve injury (0.02%) giving a foot that you cannot lift when walking and pain down the leg like sciatica.
Any further concerns you have about the complications should be addressed to Mr Cope or his team when you meet him in the clinic.

Contact Us

Renacres Hall Hospital

Renacres Lane, Halsall,
Lancashire, L39 8SE

Telephone

01704 841 133

 

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