Thursday, December 18, 2014

H.O. and Hardware Removal

***Please excuse any typos - I'm still under the influence of anesthesia!

Today's follow-up surgery was so different rom my prior hip surgeries.  After experiencing the mother of all hip surgeries twice, I figured this one would be significantly easier and it was.

Unlike the PAOs, where Perry and I stayed in a hotel in Tacoma 3 hours from our house and had to be at the hospital at 5:30 AM, today's surgery was at noon.  I slept in my own bed last night and we took our time going to the hospital around 9:00 AM after a full night's sleep.

This surgery was outpatient - once I was stable in the recovery room I was allowed to go home.  I'm sitting on my recliner at home right now. My pain is well controlled.

I was not very nervous for this one, which is unusual for me. I did know that this would be a much simpler surgery but I'm always nervous around doctors and hospitals.

Dr. Santore was able to successfully remove all of the H.O ("a massive amount," as he told me) and put my rectus femoris tendon and muscle back together.  He also moved some bone that wasn't showing on the x-ray, outside of the rectus femoris, which was preventing external rotation. I am beyond excited that I now have better internal rotation as well as unexpectedly-better external rotation.

He re-used my original scar which is great.  He was also going to remove as many screws as he could easily reach, but when he tried to remove the first one it broke off so they are staying. Dr. Mayo countersinks screws, and it has been five years,  so we knew this could be an issue.  The screws don't really bother me other than a little sensitivity with cold weather but it's always good to NOT have metal in your body if you have the choice.  Oh well!

At least now I have 12 and a half screws instead of 13!

I'm tired from the anesthetic so signing off now.

6 comments:

HipRN said...

Terri,I read on your previous post about Dr. Santore saying they don't do hip sockets so deep now and we had ours at the same time. My PAOs also were done with quite deep posterior coverage, and now I'm noticing my surgeon doing his pt's hips with more lateral and more even posterior and anterior coverage. Did Santore say what changed and why? I'm really curious as to the technique change since 5 years really isn't THAT long ago. Thanks for the update and I hope you're doing well.

HipSk8 said...

Hi HipRN - He didn't say why they had made the change. I will be seeing him Tuesday and if I remember, I'll ask. Perhaps they had some issues with people having trouble with various activities. So many people are going back to sports and other activities that they may have realized that they needed to give more ROM.

It actually really made me upset when I found out -- I have been working so hard for 5 years and had no way of knowing that I was working for nothing. I don't think many of these surgeons have any concept of what dancers do. I didn't even know which questions to ask.

Getfithipster said...

Hi there.. I am 5 months post hip arthroscopy(my second one) for labral tear due to mild dysplasia. I developed HO from this, about 1 cm. My doctor has released me for now, but he didn't tell me much about the HO, no treatment was given. I only have a little stiffness on the outer hip and he said it is still from the recovery. I have been trying to find out how long it takes for HO to completely mature but I am assuming i am out of the woods since he released me. My surgery wasn't as extensive as yours and HO is very uncommon after an arthroscopy, but. I don't know anyone that has had it and wanted to see if you can enlighten me. I am glad that things went Ok for you. Thanks so much!

HipSk8 said...

Hi HipsterMom - I was told that after 6 months your HO will be "fully formed" - but I have also heard you should wait a year before having it removed (I waited 5) to be sure it's done growing. I don't know if a 1 cm HO would cause any harm - that seems very small. I lived with a "huge" (my surgeon's word) HO chunk for 5 years with really no major issues. You should probably wait until you are fully recovered and then see if you have any residual ROM problems. Otherwise I'd just leave it alone! Terri

Unknown said...

I know it's been a while since your HO surgery but I am about to have HO removed from my left hip next Friday. This surgeon does very little pre-op so I don't have a lot of info. It will be out patient and should be relatively short surgery and easy recovery. the HO looks small but it's poking the top part of my thigh when I move and causing a bulge of swelling. But I'm wondering about recovery details. I was going to take the day after surgery off and then will have a long weekend before I have to be back to work. So a total of 4 days that I could potentially lay around, if need be. I'm thinking the incision will be sore for awhile beyond that but nothing to stop me from living mostly normally. I was assuming no crutches, too. any recollection you have would be helpful. thanks

HipSk8 said...

Hi Laurie - If you have a desk job you will be fine with 4 days off. I took a Tylenol 3 the day of the surgery and rested the next day. I didn't need any heavy pain killers. I did use crutches for a few days but if I had a cane that would have worked fine -- I just wanted a little stability and to keep people away from me! But I wasn't really that sore for more than a day.

I actually took 2 weeks off because it was during the holidays and my doctor thought I should, but that was really overkill. The only issue might be driving if it's your right leg. Mine was on the left. I honestly didn't think it would have prevented me from driving if it had been my right leg though.

If you have any flexibility you might want to take a couple more days off after the weekend, or work from home if you can, but I don't think you are going to have an issue! Good luck with the surgery, after our PAOs it's really easy and you will feel better once that HO is out.