u/toradora12

Hi everyone! I'm a 33-year-old male from Louisiana.

At the age of 8, I was diagnosed with SCFE (slipped capital femoral epiphysis). Before a Cub Scout summer camp, my parents noticed I had a limp. They called my pediatrician, who asked me to try lifting my leg while lying on the floor. I struggled to lift it but I still wanted to attend the camp. While staying at a nearby friend's house, I jumped out of bed, which caused my right femoral head to slip (unbeknownst to me at the time). My parents rushed me to the local hospital, where pain meds only lasted thirty minutes, and X-rays of my knee found nothing. After several attempts, my pediatrician recommended X-raying my hip, which revealed the slip. Since the local hip surgeon was on vacation, I was taken to another hospital, put in traction, and had pins placed. About a year later, the pins sheared a month before their scheduled removal, so adult screws were put in, with a sheared piece left in my right femur.

Several years later, during middle school, my left hip started slipping. I noticed this while practicing for a marching band parade, and that hip was also pinned. In college, bone spurs developed in my left hip, causing numbness in my left leg while driving, so I had them removed. From 2017 to 2025, I didn't see a hip doctor, since my orthopedic surgeon retired and I wasn't experiencing significant pain.

Last year, I started experiencing significant back pain and wondered if it was related to my hips. I began seeing the orthopedic surgeon my retired doctor had recommended. In September, at my first visit, he was blunt: both of my hips were in bad shape, bone-on-bone, with my right hip worse since it had previously broken. I may have had this diagnosis earlier, but that visit was the first time I saw it written in a summary report. Then in May, I was officially diagnosed with bilateral KL Grade 4 end-stage osteoarthritis, bone-on-bone in both hips.

Since seeing the doctor last September, I did physical therapy twice a week from September through January, because, as my PT put it, we were trying to loosen up muscles that had been tight for 26 years of inactivity. Then in March of this year, I hit the highest weight I'd ever been at, 263 lbs. I started tracking my food and going to the gym consistently. I've lost 25 lbs since March. All my doctors said losing weight would help my joints, and I was hoping some of my hip pain would lessen. After losing that much weight and going a couple of weeks without hip pain, I thought I was in the clear, but then it reared its ugly head again. My hip pain typically flares from grocery shopping, where we walk around the store for 30-40 minutes. Tylenol helps but doesn't eliminate it.

When I saw my doctor last September, he put a hip replacement on the table and told me it was my decision, whenever I was ready for my hip to stop limiting my life. That happens to be right now. lol. I've had a stars-aligning moment: we'd just moved out of a third-floor apartment into a house, my work is currently remote, and my insurance out-of-pocket max was already met for the year. If not now, it wasn't happening again for quite a while.

My original orthopedic surgeon prepared me for this day. She told my parents and me from an early age that I'd need a hip replacement in my 30s, and here I am at 33 with a total hip replacement done. I'm not scared or nervous, since I've had my fair share of surgeries, six total just for my hips. I won't lie and say I'm not emotional, though, knowing this pain is finally coming to an end and my hips won't limit my life as much anymore.

Surgery day

My total hip replacement (Mako robotic-assisted, direct superior approach) was July 1, 2026. I was taken back for surgery around 7:30 am. In the OR, I got to see everyone who'd be part of the procedure, then climbed onto the table myself. I had to sit up on the edge of the table and hunch over, hugging a pillow, while they placed the spinal block. I don't remember feeling it happen. Then I laid on my left side, arms out and hands together with a pillow between them, strapped in place. The anesthesiologist asked if I could lift my legs, and that's when I realized I couldn't. It just felt like dead weight. It happened fast, and then I was falling asleep as the anesthesia hit my IV.

I woke up in recovery around 9:20 am, just before they brought in the portable X-ray machine to image my hip. I had a moderate pain running from my thigh to my knee, similar to what I'd been used to before surgery. The first time they got me to sit up, I lasted a few minutes before feeling nauseous and my blood pressure dropped, so I laid back down. A while later, we tried again. I stayed sitting on the edge of the bed for several minutes, felt nauseous again, but my blood pressure held this time. We waited a bit more, then tried a third time, and I was able to stand and pee in a urinal (about 800 ml, so apparently I'd had quite a bit of fluids).

Then I waited for OT to come by, which turned into a small-world moment: my OT had a family connection to the doctor who first diagnosed my SCFE as a kid. Things came full circle. One thing I didn't expect was how much assistive equipment I'd get from OT and the hospital: a leg lifter, a sock aid, a small grabber, and a shoe horn. Glad I'd bought mine ahead of time from Amazon so I could just return them. In OT I learned how to get in and out of a bathtub and a car. Afterward I had to wait 30 minutes before PT, because of the earlier blood pressure dip.

In PT, they had me step up on a curb, walk on a ramp, and showed me a few exercises. Back in my room, we went through the discharge packet: meds, dressing changes, everything else. I was discharged around 5 pm.

First night home

Rough. Walking from the car to the bathroom was fine, but going from the bathroom to the bedroom, I got nauseous. That was the closest I came to actually throwing up. It passed after sitting down, drinking water, and eating crackers. From there I laid in bed, getting up every hour to walk and use the bathroom. I'd doze off thinking I'd slept an hour, only to find out it had been 15 minutes. That continued until midnight, then into the early morning. We didn't get any real stretches of sleep until daylight. The Breg Polar Care Wave helped, but the pain was still there.

There wasn't much we could've done differently about one thing: we'd moved in April, and the weekend before my procedure, we went to grab my old recliner from my parents' house. That's when my girlfriend noticed the chair wouldn't work. It was old, with worn cushions that put my hips lower than my knees, which would've broken my hip precautions. We went shopping for a new one, but it wasn't delivered until the afternoon after my procedure.

Day 1 and beyond

July 2nd wasn't horrible. The pain was more of a nagging pain that just never fully let up. I was prescribed hydrocodone 5/325 and a muscle relaxer, both on a schedule. The following day, we asked about a higher dose and got switched to hydrocodone 7.5/325. Just filled that, curious whether it does more than take the edge off.

That afternoon I had PT again and was surprised by how much range of motion my leg already had. It moved straight, no flaring outward. Afterward, I mostly camped out in the new recliner, which is also where I slept the second night home. Sitting upright there seems to help both of us sleep better, since I'm not waking my girlfriend up every time I need to move.

Right now, I don't get up without her being awake. Partly that's precaution, and partly it's just that it puts her mind at ease to be there if I need help.

More updates to come as recovery continues.