things learned preoperation for hip replacement

[Guest guest]

I am a 65 year old male having his first hip replacement dec 2 outside

of Chicago. It is being done by a doctor using the small cut method.

We talked about the problem that one leg was longer than the other and

this is what I learned. When you have bone on bone, the leg is in

fact shorter than the other (if the other is good) by about 1/4 inch.

If both are bad and only one is repaired, the repaired leg will be 1/4

inch longer than the nonrepaired leg because the rebuild brings it

back to the normal size. Once the other hip is fixed, they return to

their normal length and be equal. I thought that was interesting.

Minimum evasive describes the size of the cut, nothing else. The

doctor said that there was a study where 12 dead bodies were given

both types of surgery than taken apart to see what was done. Minimum

evasive actually had more cut internal stuff than the regular surgery.

I had a good half hour discussion and it was very interesting.