My wife had minimally invasive hip replacement surgery 4 1/2 weeks ago. After two weeks she had no improvement, tremendous pain. But the X-ray showed a perfect image. The surgeon said: keep on exercising. After four weeks the X-ray was even better (some bone growth). But the pain is relentless, no improvement. The surgeon said: he never had a patient on a walker after four weeks. She may have a fracture ahead or beyond the X-ray plane. Cannot say for sure, because MRI's or CT Scans are not possible. Probably occured during surgery. Stop exercising, it should slowly heal! Come back in four weeks! So, we don't even know if the diagnosis is correct, but it should heal. The literature never mentions this as a possible complication. Our surgeon has done hundreds of minimally invasive procedures, but he has never seen it. Has anybody heard of a problem like this?

-- George Erdi (GErdiPV@aol.com), November 06, 2004

Answers

I take it its thigh pain she is having. It does seem there may be an increased risk of fracture with the minimally invasive approach, I've heard of a few people with this. It may be due to the fact that the surgeon does not get the same view of the proceedure as he would with a big scar. Its a complication of all THr's though. Hope things have improved now for your wife,

Leigh

-- Leigh (LghCampbell@hotmail.com), December 02, 2004.