joint replacement

[Guest guest]

I'd like to start out by saying what wonderful times we live in.

Medically speaking that is. I think our society and culture are

going to hell in a hand basket, but I'll keep my political opinions

to myself.

I'm writing this for my own sanity sake, but I hope it might be

helpful to others as well. With all that said I wanted to write

about joint replacement.

I have a new shoulder. It's a DuPuy, (a & company)

and all things considered I'm blessed to have had it done. I took a

bad fall back in 1990, 28 feet onto a concrete floor. Needless to

say I was badly broken. I had numerous broken bones, and lots of

stitches. My right shoulder was damaged to the point of needing

reconstructive surgery. When I had healed up enough to get out of

the wheelchair, I had what was called a Bristol repair done. It was

the first of several operations done to try to save the shoulder.

With the onset of osteo-arthritis, everywhere I've broken bones or

damaged joints has been affected the worst. All my major joints are

now affected, shoulders and knees and spine being the most painful.

I had the bone spurs ground down and the shoulder joint cleaned

out, but in the end the blood vessels died and it was just bone on

bone. Replacement was my only option at that point. I should point

out that I went back to doing drywall after I healed up in the first

place. I did manual labor for 12 years after the accident. I was

told to retire or retrain then, but didn't listen. I had my own

business, and was trying to build a life for my then new bride, and

when the kids started coming, I was not about to go back to being

broke trying to build another career. I was foolish, but then

hindsight is always like that. Well, it is for me anyway. I busted

butt while my wife finished up college and got her own career going.

Thankfully, she has a good career now and is able to take care of us

now that my career is over. I still work, but I make a fraction of

what I did contracting.

The shoulder is two years old now, and works well. I have about 85

to 95% range of motion and strenght and am able to do things that I

could not do the last several years before having it replaced. The

little things like being able to scratch my left ear with my right

hand behind my head still make me smile. The joint is so smooth it

moves almost effortlessly. With that said, there are several things

one should consider before having a shoulder replacement that I was

not even aware of until after I had mine done. I am pain free in the

joint I had cut off and replaced, however, that is not to say that

having a new shoulder is painless. The downtime and pain of having

one installed are worse as you age. I have a pretty high stoop of

pain I've had to. Even so, it was a long hard road to heal and

rebuild the muscle mass and range of motion. Something else I did

not consider when I had it done were the ligaments and tendons. I

was so struck by the way they were going to cut out my old one, drill

out my bone, and pound the new one down in, I didn't give any thought

to how they would reattach everything else. Ligaments and tendons

have to be removed and then reinstalled after the new joint is put

in. Since these won't heal back together on their own, they use

titanium grommets to tack it all back down. These grommets pull when

you exert force on the arm, say lifting something heavy like one of

your kids (painful). Also, they measure your other arm/shoulder

before the surgery so they can make the two match. Even so, if they

reattach your ligaments and tendons even a little differently than

they were, you have problems. For me it was that the ligament that

holds my bicep in place is a little shorter now, so straightening out

my arm completely was painful until I was able to stretch it out (it

still bothers at times). It also affected my finger dexterity, I

pick a little banjo, and had to retrain my fingers to go where I

wanted them to go without looking at them. Only a little difference,

but not something I had not considered before hand. Lastly, my own

shoulder had compressed and dropped a considerable distance over the

years. When they installed the new on, they used my left shoulder as

a frame of reference. When I look in the mirror now, other than the

scar, both shoulders look identical. However, it took me about a

year to be able to reach for something without looking and hit my

mark. Like getting out of the shower and reaching for your towel…and

miss. It was one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced. It

felt like my arm was not completely my own.

If I had to do over again, I would. The new shoulder has

improved my quality of life. I'm facing a knee replacement sometime

in the not so distant future, and I wonder what new problems I'll

have that I was unaware of this time. I'm writing this for anyone

considering joint replacement. Joint replacement is a modern marvel,

but there is a lot that's not in the brochure.