Total Hip Replacement/Hip Resurfacing

Hi STiger, glad to hear things are going so well - my experience has been very similar to yours. I'm now 2 months post op resurf and things continue to go well. No arthritis pain - on a good track to full recovery. I started swimming gently at about week 3 and am now back to (nearly) normal training. I have been flip turning since my week 6 check up. I have already regained my pre-op range of motion (which was compromised by arthritis) and I'm slowly improving from there. I'm not yet doing dives off the blocks but I hope eventually to be at least as good off the blocks than I was before. But I'm going to build up strength in the gym before I get back on the blocks. I'm doing gentle breaststoke vertical kicking to build up strength before going back to BR proper, which will also wait until after my 3 month check up. I had been in increasing pain for years before but was encouraged by my ortho to wait as long as possible before going ahead with surgery. For me there were 2 key triggers to choosing to go ahead - I could no longer get into grab start position - which was symbolic of increasing disability - and I went on vacation and couldn't enjoy a walk on the beach. So I needed to regain quality of life. I have found the biggest challenge post-op has been to regain hip strength. Eg at 3 weeks I couldn't yet do a leg lift on the operated side. I'm still relatively weak but doing plenty of leg lifts as part of PT. I'm getting my cardio fitness back slowly swimming. cycling and in the gym - did a good 4k session yesterday. My kicking is still weak but I'm confident that things are on track (for example, in the free kick set yesterday I was repeating 100s free kick at 10-15s slower than when fit pre-op, but 10s per 100 better than 2 weeks ago). JamieJ, there seem to be plenty of success stories out there, and being fit seems to be correlated with post-op success and speed of recovery, based on all the experiences I've read on various hip discussion groups. Good luck with your decision. I shared your concerns pre-op. I think most people would recommend "Get yourself a good surgeon and don't wait". It seems to me that there's no reason you can't be as good as before within 6 months. The resurf option seems to be very successful for the sporty types.

Hi STiger, glad to hear things are going so well - my experience has been very similar to yours. I'm now 2 months post op resurf and things continue to go well. No arthritis pain - on a good track to full recovery. I started swimming gently at about week 3 and am now back to (nearly) normal training. I have been flip turning since my week 6 check up. I have already regained my pre-op range of motion (which was compromised by arthritis) and I'm slowly improving from there. I'm not yet doing dives off the blocks but I hope eventually to be at least as good off the blocks than I was before. But I'm going to build up strength in the gym before I get back on the blocks. I'm doing gentle breaststoke vertical kicking to build up strength before going back to BR proper, which will also wait until after my 3 month check up. I had been in increasing pain for years before but was encouraged by my ortho to wait as long as possible before going ahead with surgery. For me there were 2 key triggers to choosing to go ahead - I could no longer get into grab start position - which was symbolic of increasing disability - and I went on vacation and couldn't enjoy a walk on the beach. So I needed to regain quality of life. I have found the biggest challenge post-op has been to regain hip strength. Eg at 3 weeks I couldn't yet do a leg lift on the operated side. I'm still relatively weak but doing plenty of leg lifts as part of PT. I'm getting my cardio fitness back slowly swimming. cycling and in the gym - did a good 4k session yesterday. My kicking is still weak but I'm confident that things are on track (for example, in the free kick set yesterday I was repeating 100s free kick at 10-15s slower than when fit pre-op, but 10s per 100 better than 2 weeks ago). JamieJ, there seem to be plenty of success stories out there, and being fit seems to be correlated with post-op success and speed of recovery, based on all the experiences I've read on various hip discussion groups. Good luck with your decision. I shared your concerns pre-op. I think most people would recommend "Get yourself a good surgeon and don't wait". It seems to me that there's no reason you can't be as good as before within 6 months. The resurf option seems to be very successful for the sporty types.