Hip Replacement 04/02/21

Not sure this is the right place to post this but as I was a rider down last Thursday 4th Feb 21 and thought, I would share my experience here partly to say thanks to all those who stopped, I had three doctors there in about 3 minutes and partly to share my experience to see how common it is.
So on Thursday morning I was cycling to work at about 7:30 down Quietway 1 at Rothsay St. in Bermondsey approaching the Junction with Law St saw the junction had been deliberately obscured by two parked vans so slowed down and passed the blind spot created by the parked vans only to find another van coming towards me down Law St neither of us were going fast but I braked because there was no where for me to go. And that was it, the bike skidded out from me and my hip hit the road full force, I bounced when I landed and my Femur was broken close to the ball at the top, unbelievable pain. Really luckily the ambulance was there within 10 minutes and the driver of the on coming van piled me with builders jackets whilst I shook on the street.
In shock I was taken to St. Thomas's Hospital A&E I did not realise till then there are Minors and Majors sections of A&E at St Thomas's. I was in Majors which should have enlightened me on my situation which I was still convinced was really bad bruising and hoped I might be walking out with some painkillers and bed rest later that day.
In the old days they used to pin a break like this but because blood circulation is critical the pins often went wrong. Now for high fractures, those near the hip ball they prefer to do a Hip Replacement as long term outcomes are much better. God knows what the outcomes were in the old old days.
On Saturday following a diagnosis of Femur fracture I entered my octogenarian years early and had a full Hip Replacement on my left leg and yesterday, Tuesday I left hospital after the physio-therapists had trialed me on a flight of stairs, to start my recovery anything from 6 to 12 weeks with full recovery at 6 months.
So how many forumongers have had a similar experience?

Jesus ! Commiserations and good luck with the healing up fast.

That is well shit, so sorry. Best of luck with the rehab.

Woah, heavy!

Is it Titanium? You might need a new custom bike to celebrate recovery

Yeah not a bad idea.
Normally after a fall I get straight on the bike so that I do not loose my nerve but that is a bit difficult in this instance

Yeah don't push it, it'll come back.
I'm still not as confident on the road riding solo as I was before getting knocked off a couple of times and slipping on wet corners but don't pressure yourself.

Heal up!

Jesus wept! That sounds awful. I think, and I could be wrong here, that @Brave had a hip replacement.

Hope your recovery is setback free and quicker than anticipated.

Sounds seriously painful, bad luck. fwiw a riding buddy of mine had a similar fall on black ice a couple of years back. They tried the pinning route first - cue 9 months of pain/frustration/progress/regression. Eventually he opted for a full hip replacement - walking comfortably in a few weeks and back on club runs well before six months. Rode a couple of 200s with him last autumn and no long term probs at all. Hopefully you'll have a similar positive recovery, best of luck with the rehab.

No experiences to share but just to wish you well in recovery! You have a few stairs at home to practice on. How's the bike?

Ouch

Heal up fast

sorry to hear this and hope you heal up quick! Give me a shout if you need any errands running or anything. I am only up the road in Brockley.

Crikey - Hope you heal quickly.

I did. Be 7 years ago in July. It was the result of a crash. But it was brilliant (not the crash, the replacement). I have to admit that I was covered under private health care so had a pretty good surgeon/treatment and physio at the institute of sport but I was back on the bike by September. The worst part for me was having to sleep on my back for a few weeks. But other than that it was a great success. Haven't looked back since. In fact I think I'm stronger than ever and the only downside is I set off the metal detectors at airports. You'll be fine. Do everything the physio tells you to do. Nothing more, nothing less. Heal fast. XX

Thanks

Give me a shout if you need/want any advice or just reassurance.

I think I am pretty good but you never know. The confirmation I made the right decision to go for a full hip is good

Totally the right decision. Once you recover you'll never notice it. At least I never do. The hang up that hip replacements are only for old people is silly. It a medical procedure for whoever needs it. You needed it. As I say I actually have never stronger for it. That might be a result of all the right physio and I still do reformer Pilates and all manner of core work which I should have been doing years ago. TBH

Good lord A. Sorry about your accident but glad to see you are on the mend.

My only advice is do your rehab. Hope to see you back on Q1 soon.

Yes learning to do rehab will need to do a bit of research on that as what I got on discharge is a little thin

I cycled into a curb 8 months ago, went down. Tried a few times to get up. Nope.

My surgeon went for two screws, as well as a cable to keep things in place while the bone recovered, rather than a full hip replacement. There was a risk they'd need to be replaced if I felt any discomfort in the cold (This has all happened while living in Stockholm, where it's currently -10), but fortunately things seem to be ok.

I felt pretty down for the first 2-3 months so my advice would be as kind to yourself mentally as you can possibly be. Please get in touch if you'd like any advice or support - I'd love to be of help if I can. It's tough when the main thing you do to feel ok is suddenly taken away from you.

Don't rush things physically either, but like @Brave says, do everything the physio asks. Luckily in Sweden the after care is incredible and I had my last physio just 3 days ago having gone twice a week for the last 6 months. Hope you can sort something similar.

Hang in there pal!

I had a cycling crash in 2008 and broke the upper part of my femur - similar to you. They installed a dynamic pin in my case - I found the most difficult thing was restrengthening the area after the op.
They'd had to cut through the various small, strap like muscles at the side of the thigh in order to reset the bone and fix the pin in place.
My advice would be lots of physio and use in the weeks and months after - theres plenty of advice out there. PM if I can help - you'll be fine.

Hey Zebra,

I had a total left hip replacement 14 weeks ago. I had to have it due to AVN, loss of bloody supply and subsequent necrosis of the femur head. This is commonly caused when the vein gets damaged during a fracture/break nr the femur head. This would have been what they were trying to avoid for you - having lived with it for 3 years, I can tell you you've done the right thing. Hip replacements last a super long time now too. Uncertain what caused mine.

As a point of reference I had a posterior approach procedure. I chose this on the advice of my surgeon. I was sent home with no movement restrictions and have been fine without raised seating/bed etc.
I got so much conflicting reports when I looked into recovery times, rehab principles and how to reintroduce training. I think every situation is different but I've tried to give a quick overview of my last 4 months as reference.

The first 2 weeks I focussed completely on recovery, eating really well, resting as much as I could, and physio 2-4 times a day. I didn't sleep great - discomfort from the hip and spacey from pain meds. Physio felt awkward and uncomfortable. This did improve over time. 3x short walks a day building up from 5mins - 30mins. I was off crutches pretty quickly. Def by end of 2nd week.
Diet isn't to be overlooked IMO. I eat a low-GI diet anyway but I fiddled it to make sure it was really low GI and kept carb intake low and the inflammation around the op site disappeared really quickly - obviously swelling at the incision remained.
My surgeon told me I'd be back on the turbo after 2 weeks and I didn't believe him. He was right. I started doing 30min sessions with no resistance after 2.5 weeks and started to rebuild.
I did 4/5 weeks of base work. Keeping the muscles active, base cardio and keeping my legs moving for long periods of time. By this point I could take the dog out for 2 hours of hill walking. Needed to rest the hip after a walk but no pain.
From there it's just got better and better. I am better than I was pre-op in many ways.

I think the key things for me were diet, keeping as much movement in the day between rest periods as possible, and physio - abduction work, S&C and don't ignore your core. I'm a sucker for routine too so I still got up with my partner and prepped lunch whilst she was working and stuff, I also after about 2 weeks let myself enjoy the forced recovery and time away from work. Have fun with it. I found that a high energy/active day could be followed by a tired/sore day and I slowly got used to it and let go of continually trying to improve on my physio or whatever little goal Id set for myself.
Goals is a good one too. Sadly this wasn't my first rodeo with surgeries, but I've always found that having little achievable goals post-op keeps me feeling like I'm progressing and have a little bit of control over the situation, can be simple shit like, I'm going to make all the coffees today or whatever. Just having to get up multiple times, stand up, balance whilst, moving around the kitchen can be properly tiring but keeps you moving and helps immensely.

I wrote more than I planned. Let me know if you have any specific questions, or feel free to get in touch etc. Hope it's a smooth recovery mate!

I dislocated my hip and tore part of my quads but had a closed reduction and no fracture, so not as traumatic as most of the examples here but I was surprised at how quick and complete the recovery was, especially compared to shoulder dislocations.

Most frustrating part (after the initial agony) was being on crutches and pooing with a straight leg with a brace on.

Managed to get a great physio through travel insurance which involved lots of standing on one leg on one of those stability cushion/wobble board things - progressing to deeper and deeper squats as time went on.

Probably not quite there yet but worth looking into once you're fully weight bearing and confident on the affected leg. Good luck, the first time you're back on your bike will feel like freedom!

So sorry to hear that, A, hope the hip replacement's a complete success, and that the emotional scars from the out-of-the-blueness of it all heal, too. I imagine you're well looked after, but just in case, as per Thrasher's offer, if you need any fetching or similar, let me know.

Thanks all who posted here your comments we really useful and have helped me come to terms with my situation. Although I will probably not be able to cycle actively for weeks I consider myself very lucky if I had done this in another country e.g USA or 30 years ago the prognosis would have been much much worse