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From: MoyersVa@aol.com
Date: 11 Jan 2000
Time: 09:14:35
Remote Name: 152.163.207.182
I was a lifelong athlete who at 38 was dying from chronic lower back and hip pain. For almost five years doctors were telling me it was all in my head and had me on enough pills to take a horse down. Last summer we moved from central Va to Richmond and I complained to a doctor I was seeing for my arthritic hands and he said he thought something was wrong and took an X-ray of my hips. In five minutes I was given the worse news I ever heard. My lower back was indeed destroyed(degenerative disc disease in the lower 3 discs) which was the direct result of a gross pelvic deformation, normally discovered at birth. Since I never had pain, before 1994, I had no idea what was lurking around the corner for me. And, since I had gotten this far in lifewith a horrible condition, my prognosis was poor. My doctor told me I faced the rest of my life in chronic pain, being slave to painkillers and antiinflammatories. He sent me to a sports rehabilitative joint reconstructive specialist by the name of Dr. William Jiranek, here in Richmond. He took one look at my hips and said they were bad news, but becausae I was so young, there was a surgery now, called a periacetabular osteotomy. It was a grueling surgery with a notoriously painful and slow recovery, one hip at a time. That would help hault the destruction of the damage to my back, restore blood supply to my dying pelvic bone and more importantly, stabilize the joint from perpetually dislocating. So, we embarked last December 1999 with the left hip first, since it was the worst, with a large cyst actually formed on it from the bones grinding together constantly. I am now home again after a two week stay in the hospital and rehab center. I have no feeling in my leg, a common result of large nerves being cut and clamped. I can tell my hip is stabilized but my back pain is worse than ever from being forced to ly on my back constantly. I can barely feed and dress myself, cant bend or roll over without help and will be totally dependant on others for care for at least a year, if everything takes as planned. Then they will be ready to do the other hip. Dont know if my brain can take the pain, or I the recovery. I would like to hear from another individual that has this conditon as I am told it is rare, and occurs mostly in males. Ive had very little success finding any info on the net about the surgery or the condition.
Thanks, Lisa