Have You Been Told You Need a Hip Replacement?
If you have been told you need a hip replacement please read on. You may be interested to hear another perspective. I am not slandering the advice of any medical professionals. But there are cases that may well respond very well to other forms of treatment. Some may not require surgery. This topic is most often related to Osteoarthritis. But it can be relevant for other types of Arthritis too. Typical examples of this are:
- People are told it’s not bad enough to replace yet but it will be in 10 years.
- You have terrible joint pain, but the actual degenerative changes are not too bad.
- Application of heat makes a significant improvement.
- Your joint movement is still quite good.
Does This Apply to me?
Without a thorough assessment no one can answer this accurately. It appears some Arthritis sufferers are told they have arthritis and need hip replacement, when they have not even had an x-ray.
A thorough examination can take up to an hour and involves the following:
- Full testing of joint and muscle movement.
- Palpation of the joint and surrounding muscles.
- X-ray, MRI or similar investigation.
- Comprehensive discussion of the nature and exact location if the pain.
- Questioning about medication use and its effectiveness.
Getting the diagnosis accurate is critical!
I still see many cases where the so called hip pain is referred pain from another area. It can be coming from the lower back or the buttock muscles. In some cases it can be from a problem in the leg muscles.
Investigating all possible factors is essential to the best outcome. To do this you may need to seek advice from a qualified practitioner that understand muscles and pain referral.
Avoiding Further Deterioration.
Muscle dysfunction can also cause a tremendous compressive force on your hip joint. Releasing muscle tension around your hip joint can reduce pain and in some cases eliminate it all together. Furthermore I speculate that it could reduce the compression on the joint. If this is so then it would likely reduce future wear and tear to the joint also.
To see a typical case that avoided hip replacement surgery please watch this video.