Product Liability Lawyer Blog
According to a recent news article from the Times-Herald, a patient interviewed was a former college football player at East Tennessee State University and a life long athlete who had developed severe arthritis in both of his hips. His doctors told him there was virtually no chance he would be able to continue walking if he did not have a double hip replacement.
The patient, now 56 years old, said he did not want a double hip replacement. There was no way he wanted to undergo the surgery and did everything he could to avoid the procedure. He said his daily pain level was eight out of ten and sometimes worse. He needed a walker and a cane just to get around.
Finally, after the pain got unbearable, he spoke to a new doctor who had recently relocated to the area and was using a relatively new procedure during surgery known as anterior total hip arthroplasty. Patient listened to what the doctor had to say and also did his own research. He determined the new procedure, which had been around for some time at other hospitals, was as good as advertised, and with this new approach, healing and rehabilitation took two months less on average than when using conventional surgical procedures for total hip replacement.
After having a double hip replacement using his doctor’s new approach, he was up and walking around just two days following the operation. As a lifelong tennis player, patient knew other people undergoing total hip replacement. One of his friends was having a single hip replacement at the same time as his double. His friend had four months of pain and rehab, and it was five months before he could even get back on the tennis court. Patient said he was certain he could play tennis just one week after surgery, but did not want to take any unnecessary risk, so he waited an additional week.
Not only is this doctor one of the few in entire country to be performing the anterior approach to total hip replacement surgery, he is one of the only surgeons in the country who is willing to perform a double total hip replacement using any surgical procedure. This particular patient was happy to not only be the first patient to undergo the new surgical procedure in his area, but also the first patient in his county to undergo double hip replacement surgery.
Unlike with knee surgery, where doctors are willing to do double knee replacement surgeries, more often, doctors typically prefer to perform a total hip replacement on one side and, after patient has fully healed, perform a second surgery on the other side. This means a patient will have to undergo two full recovery periods instead of one.
As our Boston hip replacement injury attorneys can explain, it does not matter how skilled your surgeon is or how professional the hospital is if the artificial hip itself was defectively designed. We have seen defective hips which failed completely, came loose from the ball and socket joint and released metal shavings into a patient’s tissue, causing scarring and metal poisoning (metalosis). These devices were implanted using defective surgical cutting guides.
Call the Boston Jeffrey Glassman Injury Lawyers for a free and confidential appointment — (617) 777-7777.
Additional Resources:
New procedure leads to speedy double hip replacement recovery , May 27, 2015, Times-Herald
More Blog Entries:
Tesla Singer Jeff Keith Recovering From Hip Replacement Surgery, July 7, 2014, Boston Products Liability Lawyers Blog