SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- People with chronic hip pain
can't even get into a car without wincing. A new approach to surgery repairs the
hip instead of replacing it. It's putting patients on the fast track to
recovery.
At 34, Sarah Harris found out hip problems can hit at any age.
The pain was a shooting pain down the front of my thigh, almost as though
something was digging down into my thigh," Harris told Ivanhoe.
The pain came from a condition called impingement syndrome. The cartilage at her
hip joint was torn. Every time she moved the cartilage would get pinched in the
hip socket. In the past patients had to suffer until a hip replacement was
required. Thankfully for Harris, times are changing.
"With the pain the way it was, I didn't want to wait," Harris explained.
Mark Lawler an orthopedic surgeon at Marin Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in San
Rafael, Calif., is one of a few surgeons repairing hips with an arthroscopic
procedure. He makes two small incisions, inserts a scope and other tools and
sews the cartilage back into place.
"Then we go down and there's some boney impingement of which we actually remove
some boney spurs off the cup and the neck of the femur, hopefully resolving the
problem," Dr. Lawler told Ivanhoe.
Compared to a hip replacement, the arthroscopic approach requires no hospital
stay, patients don't need to take blood thinners and recovery time is nearly cut
in half.
"It's a same-day surgery," Dr. Lawler said. "People come and go."
Five weeks after surgery, Harris is learning what it's like to live without
pain.
"I feel fabulous, absolutely fabulous," Harris, an active woman who didn't have
to slow down for hip surgery, said.
Dr. Lawler says impingement syndrome is an underlying cause of arthritis in the
hip. Having this procedure earlier in life may prevent people from having
problems in the future. The arthroscopic procedure has fewer risks than open
surgery or a hip replacement and also costs 50 percent less.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Marin Orthopedics & Sports Medicine
(415) 492-1600
http://www.marinorthopedics.com
