Friday, May 30, 2014
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Stress before surgery
What are the things that are giving you stress about your upcoming surgery?
Write down a list of questions you have, and come meet with other people who have already gone through this and can help you through it.
Write down a list of questions you have, and come meet with other people who have already gone through this and can help you through it.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Welcome
Welcome to a support page for young adults who are undergoing a periacetabular osteotomy. We call it a "PAO" for short. It's a complicated operation where the surgeon carves out the socket, and puts it into a more normal position. This is done to help relieve pain and improve your hip's function. The hope is that a PAO will decrease your pain and preserve your cartilage, thus the goal is to delay your need for a hip replacement.
Dr Peters has improved the surgical technique and keep most of the big muscles still attached which speeds up the recovery. But cutting the bones still hurts so you should have an epidural (small tube giving pain medication into your back to relieve the hip pain after surgery). This makes it more comfortable but a little slow to move your legs the first day. After the epidural is removed, your legs will come back, and start working better, you can get up with Physical Therapy and walk around with up to half of your weight on your leg using crutches for 6 weeks. After 2 or 3 days in the hospital, you can go home and continue healing.
Your first 2-4 weeks at home should be slow - not doing too much, so you don't aggravate the pain. As the pain gets better, you can do more (going for walks, etc) but don't go back to work or school until the hip feels pretty good. You will have 2 appointments after surgery - at 2 weeks and if you are doing well, you can start some gentle PT if you feel up to it. Then at 6 weeks with Dr Peters to check xrays, and make sure you are ready to move to the next stage of recovery which includes more PT to regain your leg strength, transition to 1 crutch then no crutch (without increasing pain). After 3-4 months you should be able to do most of your normal activities, but we haven't seen many patients ready to try to run until at least 6 months after surgery.
Here you can post questions and answers from the patient's perspective.
Jill Erickson PA-C
Physician Assistant with Dr Christopher L. Peters MD
University of Utah, Department of Orthopaedics
Orthopaedic Center
590 Wakara Way
Salt Lake City, UTAH 84108
Dr Peters has improved the surgical technique and keep most of the big muscles still attached which speeds up the recovery. But cutting the bones still hurts so you should have an epidural (small tube giving pain medication into your back to relieve the hip pain after surgery). This makes it more comfortable but a little slow to move your legs the first day. After the epidural is removed, your legs will come back, and start working better, you can get up with Physical Therapy and walk around with up to half of your weight on your leg using crutches for 6 weeks. After 2 or 3 days in the hospital, you can go home and continue healing.
Your first 2-4 weeks at home should be slow - not doing too much, so you don't aggravate the pain. As the pain gets better, you can do more (going for walks, etc) but don't go back to work or school until the hip feels pretty good. You will have 2 appointments after surgery - at 2 weeks and if you are doing well, you can start some gentle PT if you feel up to it. Then at 6 weeks with Dr Peters to check xrays, and make sure you are ready to move to the next stage of recovery which includes more PT to regain your leg strength, transition to 1 crutch then no crutch (without increasing pain). After 3-4 months you should be able to do most of your normal activities, but we haven't seen many patients ready to try to run until at least 6 months after surgery.
Here you can post questions and answers from the patient's perspective.
Jill Erickson PA-C
Physician Assistant with Dr Christopher L. Peters MD
University of Utah, Department of Orthopaedics
Orthopaedic Center
590 Wakara Way
Salt Lake City, UTAH 84108
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