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Kathy's Story After Anterior Hip Replacement
Kathy and her family have always been active. Her husband runs half marathons, her daughter is a girls’ basketball coach, and Kathy enjoys walking, running, and hiking. Together, for many years, they have done the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, the largest 10 K in the world held each year on the Fourth of July. For the past few years, however, the pain in her right hip has kept Kathy from doing many of the activities she enjoys. At age 50, she was referred to Dr Jeffrey Burnette, an orthopedic surgeon in Macon, Georgia. “He X-Rayed it and found out I have osteoarthritis really bad,” Kathy remembers. “At the time, I was not ready to do a total hip replacement. I couldn’t get my mind to go there yet.” “My sister-in-law has had four hip replacements,” she explains. “I’ve seen what she had to go through – not being able to sit up, not being able to sleep on her side, and having to be on her back more. I just didn’t want to go there, so I just put it off as long as I could.” At that time Dr Burnette did a hip arthroscopy, which bought Kathy some more time. But she knew it was only a temporary fix. In October 2010, while out of town with her family at a University of Georgia football game, Kathy had a really bad flare up of the pain in her hip. “I knew it was getting back to the way it was before I had the arthroscopy,” she shares. “I didn’t want to do surgery unless there was actually no other choice, but I knew it was coming. The pain was too great. When you can’t go and enjoy things that you’ve done all your life, it’s a bummer.” In December 2010, Kathy had a total hip replacement of her right hip with the Direct Anterior Approach. She could not be more pleased with the results.
“I was able to be at my daughter’s basketball games about a week and a half after my surgery,” she notes. “I have told everybody I can, and people just cannot believe the difference between this type of approach and the traditional approach.”
Her sister-in-law actually had a conventional hip replacement the same day Kathy did, and she was amazed at the differences in their recovery time and process.
“I can’t say enough about the direct anterior approach,” Kathy adds. “One of my physical therapists made the comment to me that if we could do for other joints what this procedure has done for hips, it would totally revolutionize orthopedic medicine. They all were just amazed.”
Kathy is walking and exercising with her family again, and has enjoyed being able to get back to doing many of the things they enjoy doing together. “I’m so pleased. I just want to shout it from the rooftops.”
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posted 05/01/2017 in Research
Tags: macon hip replacement doctor
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