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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Why One Might Use Two or More Hip Replacements in A Lifetime?

Hip replacement is one of the joint replacement procedures that are mostly performed in orthopedics.  However, this is not a once-in-a-life-time surgical intervention.   Each patient who has had a joint implant knows that in a few decades the device will have to be replaced.   This happens because being artificial, these prosthetic devices could not act like its genuine counterparts for a life time.  Made of synthetic materials that are foreign to the human body, they eventually succumb to wear and tear. 

 There are a lot of situations that can arise once the hip replacement device has exceeded its time of best use. The effects can range from the loosening of the hip replacement itself and the development of an infection around it.  In addition to that is the breaking or wearing out of the implant and worse, the damaging of the bone surrounding the implant.  No one in the path to recovery surely wants to experience something like this at all.  However, these are inevitable and can cause obstructions to the normal function of one’s hip joint, hence a replacement is necessary.  Hopefully though, that should be after twenty to twenty five years. 

While the purpose of a hip replacement revision surgery is nothing but intended for the best results, we cannot help but contemplate that it is a riskier, more expensive procedure compared to the first.  The rate of recovery and the difficulty of executing the procedure are also more unfavorable than expected.   Why do you think so?  First, the procedure could cause excruciating pain to the patient and present a challenge to the surgeon if the tissue on the site is infected.   Next, follow up replacement operations mostly occur at a time of older age, making the pain less tolerable and stress and anxiety less unavoidable.   The patient by then might have also developed other diseases with age which can double the experience of pain and prevent the patient from taking pain relievers which pose as contraindications to the other illness.

Now that we know the benefits of a hip replacement surgery and the disadvantages of a premature revision surgery that follows, we know how crucial it is for us to make sure we are using only the best brand and model of hip replacement implant devices.  These well-working and reliable devices should also not be in the list of devices recalled by FDA such as Stryker hip replacements. 

URL Reference: orthopedics.about.com/cs/hipreplacement/a/implantissues.htm


 

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