Your hip joint bears the weight of your body and is constantly under a lot of pressure. A ball and socket joint that allows you to rotate your hip in all directions. In old age, after a serious accident, or because of osteoporosis, the hip joint may get damaged. Such a situation can cause a lot of pain and even impair the mobility of the affected individual. If medications, exercises and physiotherapy do not produce relief for the patient, hip replacement surgery remains the last option.
The Actual Surgical Procedure
During the hip surgery, the doctors remove the damaged hip and replace it with an artificial hip. This procedure is known as arthoplasty. In the surgery, the surgeons open the hip by cutting on its side. They reach the hip joint by carefully separating the ligaments and muscles that come in the way. They dislocated the femoral head from the joint and then remove it. Now the inserts of the artificial acetabulum are replaced in place of the damaged acetabulum. Continuing the procedure further, the surgeons insert the artificial top of the femur, then insert the femur in the leg, and carefully sew the leg by placing the ligaments and muscles in the leg.
After the surgery, you have to remain in the hospital for a period of 1-2 weeks for post op care and recovery. This is also done as doctors want to monitor your recovery and progress after surgery.
Reasons of Hip Joint Failure
Hip surgery is resorted to when there is a hip joint failure. This joint failure can take place because of many reasons that include rheumatoid arthritis, avascular necrosis, fracture of the hip joint because of a fall or injury through accident, bone tumor, or any other joint infection that spreads to the hip joint.
Earlier, people were afraid of going under the knife and avoided hip replacement surgery. Nowadays, arthoplasty has become a very common procedure and hundreds of thousands of individuals undergo this surgery to get rid of a painful hip joint that does not allow them to indulge in their daily activities in a normal fashion.
Weigh the Pros and Cons Before going under the Knife
If you have been experiencing hip joint pain for a long time and medications and exercises have had no effect on the symptoms of pain and swelling, you can consider the option of arthoplasty. It is a major surgery and it is prudent to weigh the pros and cons of the operation before going under the knife.
Even doctors do try other alternatives before recommending hip replacement Australia. They often try different medications and steroid injections to see if they can produce the desired results. Doctors advise many kinds of exercises and prescribe physiotherapy to reduce the symptoms of hip joint pain. Walking-aid is prescribed for many patients to reduce the pressure on their hip joint as well.
Alternative Methods to Treat Hip Joint Failure
Exercises prescribed for hip joint pain are intended to strengthen the muscles around the hip. Walking aids prevent stress on the hip joint to make movement of the patient less painful. Some patents’ show improvement in their symptoms with these alternative methods and they are able to avoid the painful surgical process. However, if there is no improvement in the condition of the patient, hip replacement surgery remains the last way to treat hip joint failure.