Hip Arthroscopy

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

New to the site, I am a 47 yr old woman, love to XC ski and dance

and have been unable to do so for a coupla years now.

I was refered by my very good physical therapist to Dr. Palmer

at St Croix Orthopedics in Stillwater, MN. He specializes in hip

arthroscopy - a surgery in which the hip joint is expanded slightly;

enough to get an instrument through and a tiny camera into the joint

between the acetabulum and the head of the femur. It is termed

a " diagnostic procedure " . The joint is then flushed with saline to

produce kind of an underwater effect. I had a spinal block and

watched the whole deal on the TV monitor. He scraped at and

cauterized some furry cartilege, removed a big piece of matter that

was rattling around in what he termed the " garbage collector " of the

hip (I don't know medical term, sorry). He also trimmed pieces of a

labrum tear which I think I got doing some aggresive skiing.He then

decided that the OA was too far along to do a procedure he termed

a " micro-fracture " , removed the instruments and closed the two

incisions he made with 4 stitches.

Anyone hear about this here " micro-fracture " procedure? If done, it

would have put me on crutches for 6-8 weeks to remove the

possibility of compression forces. It seems to be a kind of

cartilege or bone surface rebuilding procedure.

By the way, I had the surgery in Aug 2003 and I still have pain in

my r hip enough to stop me from doing the things I love.

My question is this; anyone else have a hip arthroscopy procedure

done who then moved on to hip resurfacing? The surgeon said my next

step was THR if the pain/deterioration continued.

I am about to investigate my US hip resurfacing resources (meager as

they seem to be) but definitely will move on to Belgium or UK

professionals if nec.

Thanks,

April