If your hip is causing pain that is interfering with your ability to exercise or sleep, and affecting work or your ability to look after you children, it may be time to consider having your hip replaced.
What does hip replacement surgery entail?
A minimally invasive total hip replacement usually entails a one to two-day admission into hospital, after which you can expect to leave able to climb stairs, and be able to look after yourself.
The procedure requires a regional anaesthetic, and then surgery to remove the worn-out painful hip joint, replacing it with a new component typically with a ceramic and polyethylene bearing. Patients can walk as soon as their anaesthetic has worn off.
What’s the success rate of hip replacement surgery?
Hip replacement is considered one of the three most successful surgeries of the 21st century, with cataract surgery and coronary bypass surgery. Most patients are walking the same day as surgery, and the vast majority have forgotten they have had their hip replaced twelve months after surgery.
You can expect to return to any form of low impact exercise regime, and self-employed patients can return to work within a week. Patients can make a return to higher level of exercise such as running, but this is likely to have an impact on implant longevity.
How often is revision hip surgery required? Are the results of hip replacement surgery permanent?
These days, most patients can expect their implants to outlast them. Younger or more active patients run a higher risk of their implant failing and needing revision surgery in their lifetime, but modern implants and bearings have failure rates of less than 5 per cent over the same time period, and revision surgery is also becoming safer and less invasive.
Will all of my symptoms go away?
Hip replacement resolves all the pain of arthritis or a damaged native hip joint, but the muscles and tendons will be deconditioned and so it can take several weeks or months to rehabilitate the soft tissues and fully recover after surgery.