Castanet

JLives wrote:That sucks Liam. Hopefully it heals up. I just got my staples out on Tuesday. All 24 of them. I broke my tibula and fibula. They were in for 3 weeks before being removed. That part sucked. Now I'm recasted and will stay that way for several more weeks. Thank goodness for Percocet although it really affects my appetite and energy level which I don't like but is still very necessary.

JLives... Sorry to hear its a long recovery for you but glad to see you are making progress. I got around 25 staples myself that have to be removed. I can't remember ever having staples removed. I'm sure it won't be pleasant but hopefully not to bad. I hate casts as well and am glad I don't have one this round of injuries. Hopefully its not to sweaty and itchy for you!
As for the percocet they do work wonders as I'm sure you know just be careful as I'm sure you've been told. I've been on them since September and anytime I've stopped to prove to myself I could its been not fun but really not to bad. Every time I've gone a week without its usually just like being really grumpy/sick at the same time. Its kind of like having a flu but being really *bleep* of and angry, I just retreat to my room and tell the world to leave me alone! Normally after a couple days its not to bad though again. Mind you I never got to a high dosage 1-3 day on average before surgery and then after surgery it got quite high up to around 6 a day and now I'm getting the numbers back down as pain is getting more manageable. Percocet definitely messes with my appetite but the less I take the more my appetite comes back!

I went to physio today and he made me work today! I walked about 10ft without a walker/cane or any support. Then he had me walking around with a cane and standing on one foot putting all weight on my new hip! Was really shocked I could do all that and also that my range of motion is 100% in all the motions I'm allowed to do so far! My physiotherapist is very happy and wants me to practice walking with just a cane as much as I can this weekend!

Not to bad considering tomorrow is 2 weeks since surgery! I hope it keep moving forward at this good pace!

Ok thought I'd give another update!
Tomorrow is 20 days since my total hip replacement. My progress is a lot better than I expected. Today I got my staples out which really wasn't bad at all similar feeling to getting acupuncture needles but pulling out instead of going in. The surgeon is really happy with how well I'm walking with my cane although my thigh, leg, and even calf muscles at times are still quite tight/stiff and tender at the moment. Everyday the swelling is going down and less sensitivity. I still got some bruising but its gotten a lot better to. I'm still very tired and sleeping a lot. I'm happy with my progress so far and just keep looking forward to weeks passing by and getting healed completely. Its a slow but steady process. I'm so glad I got my hip replaced though. Already it feels so much better, no clicking, popping or pain really in the joint, it's all muscle pain/incision pain it seems! I've just started driving my moms automatic car around a bit in town which is nice, I don't feel so trapped at home. I can't drive my cars as they are manual until about the 8-12 week mark which really sucks but will keep me out of trouble. I just got back from seeing 15th anniversary showing of original Fast And Furious at movie theatre ....nothing like walking out everyone's getting into sick cars and I hop into a pt cruiser lol. Oh well i'll be back to slamming gears and having fun in no time!
Hope everyone else is doing well!

LiamHaddock wrote:Ok thought I'd give another update!
Tomorrow is 20 days since my total hip replacement. My progress is a lot better than I expected. Today I got my staples out which really wasn't bad at all similar feeling to getting acupuncture needles but pulling out instead of going in. The surgeon is really happy with how well I'm walking with my cane although my thigh, leg, and even calf muscles at times are still quite tight/stiff and tender at the moment. Everyday the swelling is going down and less sensitivity. I still got some bruising but its gotten a lot better to. I'm still very tired and sleeping a lot. I'm happy with my progress so far and just keep looking forward to weeks passing by and getting healed completely. Its a slow but steady process. I'm so glad I got my hip replaced though. Already it feels so much better, no clicking, popping or pain really in the joint, it's all muscle pain/incision pain it seems! I've just started driving my moms automatic car around a bit in town which is nice, I don't feel so trapped at home. I can't drive my cars as they are manual until about the 8-12 week mark which really sucks but will keep me out of trouble. I just got back from seeing 15th anniversary showing of original Fast And Furious at movie theatre ....nothing like walking out everyone's getting into sick cars and I hop into a pt cruiser lol. Oh well i'll be back to slamming gears and having fun in no time!
Hope everyone else is doing well!

Thanks for the update. You do most of your healing in your sleep so get as much as you can.

You're driving already...........most are told to not drive for at least 9 weeks, but I'm guessing maybe it was your left hip replaced then.

Bubalouie wrote:You're driving already...........most are told to not drive for at least 9 weeks, but I'm guessing maybe it was your left hip replaced then.

Yeah if its right hip or left hip you can't drive for 8-12weeks I was told
If its your left hip you can drive at 4 weeks normally if the car is automatic as you don't need your left foot to use brake/gas pedals and no clutch to push in an automatic.

My doctor and physio told me I could drive automatic pretty much as soon as I wanted but to be careful and try and keep driving to minimum because of painkillers. If I feel impaired then its best to wait or have someone else drive me.
Thankfully I'm making really good progress and my painkiller use is down to pretty low levels again, so I'm just taking it easy and only driving when needed ect. I am still very tired most of the time though, so I'm aware of that and not wanting to go out much anyways.

Ok its 1 month today since I had my total hip replacement so I thought I'd do another update.
Not a lot has changed since my last update. I have almost no bruising and minimal swelling now. My scar is almost completely healed as well and looking pretty good. I'm able to sleep in any position with minimal discomfort as long as I have pillows. Its nice to be able to sleep on both sides again. I'm walking around really good with a cane. When I walk with out I'm still quite wobbly as my left leg/hip is still sore and healing and naturally doesn't want to hold all my weight. I've got a few more exercises from my physio I'm working on and am practicing walking around more and more without the cane at home.
The most annoying thing I'd say is lack of energy/sleeping lots. I'm still sleeping usually 16+hrs a day. My doctor is a little concerned so last week I had a bunch of blood tests done, haven't heard anything back yet. He said it is normal to be really fatigued several weeks after surgery but I'm young and he didn't expect me to be sleeping that much. So ya I'm moving around good, still pretty sore but just sleeping a lot. I'm hoping I get my energy back soon but besides that I feel I'm doing really good for only 1 month out!

Hey LiamHaddock - how fit are you?

Reason I ask is friend's husband just had his hip replaced and he is having a heck of a time with the pain. He is an uber-fit rock climber, nothing but muscle. He had so much muscle they had to increase the incision size and it wasn't an easy surgery from the sounds of it.

I'm wondering how his recovery will differ from yours, and in what ways it may be similar . . . (all speculation of course).

i am big on fitness and nutrition, hope this helps http://www.surgerysupplements.com/surge ... m-surgery/

Lady tehMa wrote:Hey LiamHaddock - how fit are you?

Reason I ask is friend's husband just had his hip replaced and he is having a heck of a time with the pain. He is an uber-fit rock climber, nothing but muscle. He had so much muscle they had to increase the incision size and it wasn't an easy surgery from the sounds of it.

I'm wondering how his recovery will differ from yours, and in what ways it may be similar . . . (all speculation of course).

all muscle not fat is not always best for healing, sad but true

Lady tehMa wrote:Hey LiamHaddock - how fit are you?

Reason I ask is friend's husband just had his hip replaced and he is having a heck of a time with the pain. He is an uber-fit rock climber, nothing but muscle. He had so much muscle they had to increase the incision size and it wasn't an easy surgery from the sounds of it.

I'm wondering how his recovery will differ from yours, and in what ways it may be similar . . . (all speculation of course).

Im not overly fit in my opinion but not out of shape either. I've always been a skinny guy no matter what. That being said over the last few years I had actually lost a lot of leg muscle and core muscles from being in pain and becoming so sedentary not doing much exercise.

Honestly the incision pain, muscle healing as been the worst of the pain/recovery so far. If he has bigger muscles, bigger incision and just more muscle mass cut up/stretched during surgery I could imagine it's more painful for him. I definitely feel for him. Week 1-2 was really ruff pain wise for me the last couple weeks though has been a lot better!

All I can recommend for him is to take painkillers/sleep as much as he can. It will get better and once it does it very much worth the pain!

I wouldn't be me if I didn't recommend medical marijuana though! Don't know if he's the type of person that would go for that or not but it not only helps with the pain it makes u sleep better, helps with appetite and makes you feel great and care a little less that your in pain, stuck bored recovering all day! I've almost stopped taking percocet and moved back to mainly medical marijuana myself! I wish your friends husband all the best though and if he has any questions I'd be glad to answer them the best I can for him!

Thank you for the advice, I will pass it along.

pain killers help with pain for sure,but pain killers slow down healing

http://saveourbones.com/dont-take-these ... e-healing/

http://www.abc.net.au/health/minutes/st ... 204924.htm

the truth wrote:pain killers help with pain for sure,but pain killers slow down healing

http://saveourbones.com/dont-take-these ... e-healing/

http://www.abc.net.au/health/minutes/st ... 204924.htm

I've heard this as well. It's hard though because as mush as I'd want to say it's not worth taking the painkillers, having gone through this process and still going through it the painkillers are much needed in my opinion.

That being said one more reason to try marijuana if he's open to that. More marijuana, usually less painkillers needed and it looks like Marijuana may actually help with bone healing

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/20/can-pot-heal-broken-bones-the-answer-is-yes-study-finds/

very true https://www.leafly.com/news/health/the- ... tic-joints

I just thought i'd give another update. I'm at 5 1/2 weeks since surgery now, I'm moving around really good with a cane and often not using the cane at all if not going for long walk or at home. Without the cane depending on how sore I am I have anything from a slight wobble to my walk to looking like I'm drunk almost falling over lol. This is because my leg/hip muscles are still really weak on my left side. Next week I will start being able to do more exercises and really start strengthening the hip/leg muscles though. I'm still sleeping tons 12+ hrs a day minimum. I'm still driving only auto but hopefully in the next week or two I'll be cleared to use the clutch/drive manual again.

Now to get real about percocet for a minute. I've been on percocet for over 10 months now. At one point after the surgery I was up to 6 pills a day. Now I've never liked taking prescription pills/painkillers of any kind really. The last two weeks as I've been getting better I tried taper off my percocet from 6 pills down to only 2 a day. Each drop in pills has been ruff but manageable that being said I've gone through withdrawal of multiple recreational drugs in my younger days so I know what to expect. I actually tried going down to only 1 pill a day for 3 days but the result was I'd wake up in middle of night with the sweats, diarrhea or both and then feel like absolute hell until I took my next pill in the morning.

After visiting with my doctor today for a follow up, he's very happy with my progress but feels my fatigue is partly to do with how fast I was trying to get my pills down...apparently normally doctor only recommends going down 5-10% of dosage every two weeks. I'm definitely dependent and going through some withdrawal though. My doctor has advised I stay on 2 pills a day for the next couple weeks, then 1 1/2 for 2 weeks, then 1/2 pill twice a day for 2 weeks...eventually I will have to just pay the piper and get through the last little stretch and stop completely. The fact that I'm still getting very sore from doing exercise/walking for any length of time and have actual exercises starting next week to strengthen muscles my doctor feels I should stay with the percocet for a little while longer and just slowly taper off. It was also recommended since I use medical cannabis to possibly try capsules/edibles as it can last longer and help be more comfortable well dealing with decrease in percocet levels.

So ya just be careful folks percocet/painkillers are great and do their job, but you do pay a price and its not always super fun getting off them. Well I guess I'll be making up some THC coconut oil and just taking it a couple weeks at a time!

Hope all is going well with everyone else and I'll update you all when I have new info/more to add.