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IF
YOUR TOTAL HIP FAILS
" I do not get the same amount of
pleasure out of my total hip as other people do. I am about to have my fourth total hip
operation on my left hip in June. My first operation was with " a new and improved
version of total hip" but it did so much damage to my body, I will have to have many
surgeries before it’s all over. It ate a hole in my pelvic bones and the surgeons
used bone from other people to repair it. I was in a body cast for weeks.
I don’t believe that people who were
not through this can have any idea about the pain and handicap one suffers. Fortunately, I
have an excellent doctor and many friends that support me all the time".
What is a failed total hip ?
A painful total hip which restricts patient’s daily
activities severely is a failed total hip. The pain and other symptoms from a failed total
hip are lasting and / or increasing. A failed total hip involves also severe
psychical burden for the patient.
Psychical suffering may be worse than the pain
in the failed total hip
So you have been told by your surgeon that your total
hip has failed and that you should have a new operation. This probably could not be a surprise
because your total hip was worrying you for some time. Yet, the message caused a chock.
There were perhaps words and terms in your surgeon’s message that you did not
understand. You are anguished how all this will end.
Calm down and start to think rationally. Practically all
complications of total hip surgery are "treatable", although the success rate of
individual treatments may vary.
Try to collect more information:
Why is this new operation of your hip necessary, what is
the complication of your total hip that needs treatment with a new operation?
What precisely will the surgeon do with your total hip -
what kind of new operation your surgeon recommends to you?
What is the postoperative treatment after this new
operation?
What are the results of the new operation?
What are the possible risks with the new operation?
Note that the surgeons often speak about "revision
operation", meaning that they will "revise" the total hip prosthesis,
or more explicitly they speak about "exchange
operation", meaning that they will take the failed total hip prosthesis out and put a
new prosthesis in.
The most frequent cause of failure - loosening
Statistics show that about 80 % of all
failures that lead to the revision operation of a total hip are caused by
aseptic loosening of the total hip.
"Aseptic" means that bacteria are not causing the
loosening of the total hip prosthesis.
For more information on the aseptic loosening of the
total hip joints see the chapter Loosening of
total hip joints .
How will I know the failed
total hip?
The surest sign of the failure of a total hip
replacement is increasing and lasting pain and stiffness in the total hip.
The pain is usually in the whole hip area and
in the thigh when both components of the total hip have failed and are loose.
Patients with only the femoral component
loosening experience mainly thigh pain.
You must, however, realize that all total hip
joints may be painful on occasion,
that many patients feel "clunks" and
other noises from their well healed total hips,
and that in general the function
even of a well healed total hip
joint is not as good as the function of a normal hip joint. These are not the signs of a
failed total hip.
Other important causes of the
failure of the total hip replacement
Other important causes of the failure of the total hip
replacement are:
Deep infection (about 7 %
of all failures)
Recurrent dislocation of a THR (about 6%
of all failures)
For more information on treatment of these specific
failures visit, please, the following chapters
BACK to Total
Hip Index
NEXT to Pain in
the total hip
Before you take any action, please read the DISCLAIMER
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