Hip Talk at Surface Hippy

Hi. I was struggling with my hips from age 60 but left it to nearly 64 before biting the bullet. My BHR will be 11 years old next month, and my THR right hip will be 8.5 years.
I'm not sure that I would have qualified for a resurfacing if I had pursued it any earlier, and I too was worried about the longevity of the device. As it is, things have worked out very well, my devices have given me back the hills, climbs, parkruns and races that I needed to be 'me'.
I have a friend who had a BHR in 1998, still working well, so longevity not a problem (he's 80) and I have done over 400 5k parkruns on one or two artificial hips. I am booked in to race a half marathon on Sunday, hoping to beat last years 2:02 despite being a year older, looking forward to next year's age category of 75-79, there are races to be won!
In short, if you qualify, get it done.

I can see others have sought to answer it from the pain perspective. The other consideration I'd personally factor in is that ceramic (re-cerf) is starting to be rolled out and that presents the option of sticking with traditional MOM or going with ceramic. If it were me, I'd be favouring ceramic BUT perhaps trying to defer a little bit longer to allow for more surgeons to get the training and have a lot of procedures behind them first. I'm no expert, but it genuinely seems to be an exciting evolution of resurfacing, but always nice not to be front of line in something new that may have a learning curve for surgeons!

I took it very slow. I probably walked only for 3-4 months before even trying to jog.  And I did expect my cardio to be rough because it has been several years going back to leading into the surgery. I wasn't riding a bike, I started adding biking in when I started running and both took time.  I've really tried to focus on just getting back active and not on performance.  I know that can be hard for some people. I'm just getting close to 50 and I have two prosthetics so I'm happy to be out there.  I get that isn't everyone's goal. It will get better.

I'd throw Dr. Pritchett in the mix as well.  No bad choices here. When I had my hip resurfaced four years ago it came down to the type of implant they used and to a lesser degree location.   I chose Dr. Gross

Thanks for the reply.  I've now run probably 6 or 7 times, up to 2 miles and seeing improvement.  Although the second half feels like I'm pulling a parachute LOL.  At the beginning, a 7:30-7:45 pace is super comfy, but by about 1/2 mile it's clear I cannot keep that pace, and my first mile ends up in the 8:00-8:20 range, then my second mile is slower and just feels like a struggle cardio wise, which I'm not used to.  I've been doing a ton of mt. biking and feel great on the bike so I didn't expect my running cardio to be so far off.  Do you remember feeling the same way at the beginning?

Quote from: autoazure on October 11, 2025, 03:33:55 PMIt is a matter of pure science! If indeed your hip is knackered (damaged by OE), then it is time to have the procedure! why not just accept the facts? Read my story to see the difference it has made to my life! I just today, completed the Loch Rannoch 10K at the age of 69 in 56 minutes! Wishing you all the best whatever you decide!

That's a really good pace for 69!  What do your workouts look like? 

It is a matter of pure science! If indeed your hip is knackered (damaged by OE), then it is time to have the procedure! why not just accept the facts? Read my story to see the difference it has made to my life! I just today, completed the Loch Rannoch 10K at the age of 69 in 56 minutes! Wishing you all the best whatever you decide!

I am back to running four miles or so several times a week.  When I first started I was having some shin pain (which I never had before) and I would occasionally feel a quick, sharp pain in my left hip when I stepped.  This has almost completely gone away and my doctor said it was continued soft tissue healing. I'm now 15 months post op on that side and that rarely happens.  I continued to feel some healing progress even after a year. But now I'd say that everything feels just almost as close to perfect as I could expect.  I've really tried to take it easy as I ramped up activity. I hope you continue to see improvement, I think you still will with some of the hitches.

I had mine done at 50 years old.  My doctor told me "you will know when it's time" and he was right.  Your case sounds very similar to mine, except running was one of the last things that I could do, oddly enough.  It took me a few years to progress from occasional pain that was manageable with meds, to being basically disabled, prescription meds not helping and my life revolving around managing the pain.  On the up side, I had absolutely zero doubts or regrets when I did the surgery because of how bad my hip had become.

In hindsight, knowing how it turned out so far, doing it earlier would have been good, I would have taken less medication and returned to normal life faster.  But at the same time I have no regrets on waiting because I know 100% for sure I left nothing on the table for the old hip, it was done.  Just being able to sleep, and not having to take any pain medication at all has been life changing all by itself.  Plus being able to do fun things again really improved the quality of life a ton. 

My one piece of advice would be, do the absolute best you can to increase range of motion and flexibility leading up to the surgery.  They really torque things around and for me the soft tissue damage was the most difficult part of recovery.  When I look at the people who recover super fast, they all seemed to have very good flexibility going into surgery.  I have no data for this, it's just my own anecdotal observation, but having lived it I think being more flexible going into surgery would help reduce the soft tissue damage caused by the doctor having to move things around, and potentially make your recovery faster and easier. 

Prior to surgery, when I was still managing with meds, I did try several weeks of PT, and I was able to increase range of motion quite a bit, so maybe try some PT prior to surgery for the sole purpose of increasing range of motion, if you're able to. 

I can't directly address your question as I used a different doctor, but I saw a blurb a little while ago about robotically assisted resurfacing potentially giving a higher chance of success than unassisted.  My hip was already done so I didn't read past the headline and I don't remember where I saw it, but it would probably be worth at least doing a little homework on that to help you with your decision.  Good luck!