Hip Precautions – Total Hip Replacement Precautions – Health Fitness
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Fitness And Health Total Hip Replacement Precautions
I was diagnosed in November of 2011 with arthritis in my right hip. My goal was to take steps for total hip replacement precautions. The doctor said you need a total hip replacement and I am not sure that I actually heard him because my mind was still thinking what does arthritis in my hip mean? Another meaning of arthritis in your hip besides the normal ‘inflammation of the joint’ you get is my personal favorite ‘deterioration of the cartilage.’ Hip precautions would be the order of the day!
What would take place over the next 15 months would eventually lead me to getting a second opinion and a third. I finally settled in on total hip replacement precautions as a way in which to make the most out of this opportunity in an attempt to avoid surgery. The biggest issue with all of this for the doctors and myself is my age. I am under 50 although not by much theses days.
Patience Is Key In Total Hip Replacement Precautions
I went into the phase of total hip replacement precautions with the mindset of patience. I knew patience would be the biggest quality I could ask for that would benefit me in the long term. Patience for all of the naysayers in your life. People who are expecting immediate results who then tell you that you are wasting your time. Patience in the exercises that I am being asked to perform when at times I do not feel that I can do them at all. Patience with the therapists who are trying to help me in the sense of allowing them to do the task at hand at the pace they know that it needs to go. Patience in myself to stay humble and keep my focus on the task at hand. Patience in the process.
Although I wanted immediate results I knew that patience and giving the process time to work would be key. A perfect example is when I go to therapy I am always asked how things are going. It is quite a loaded question to answer that on a daily or weekly basis because right now I do not feel very good. My hip and the surrounding muscles that are being worked lead to many days of actually hurting more than it did prior to this rehab. Trust and patience in my therapists and doctors that I am moving forward doing the right things has its moments. Total hip replacement precautions is not an easy adjustment but with the right mindset the biggest hurdle has been removed.
Exercises For Total Hip Replacement Precautions
This blog will continue with exercises I have been instructed to do in the hope of taking total hip replacement precautions . My first day in rehab was quite exhausting. My ability to simply do some of the exercises being asked was quite painful and more importantly almost impossible. The first week of rehab is normally the worst because everything you are going through and your body is experiencing is new. Your not sure what to expect, how your body will respond, how long it will take and if all of this is even worth it.
I start with warming up which consists of either walking 8-10 minutes on a treadmill or riding a bike for the same amount of time. I then will do body squats where I hold onto a bar attached to the wall and simply squat down and up. I spent considerable time stretching my hamstrings and found that I had absolutely no stretch in them to begin with. With patience and time I have been able to increase quite dramatically the flexibility in this area.
As the appointments have gone by the exercises have begun to include weight use. These include leg extensions and leg curls. They also include leg presses which are all inclined to increase the strength of the muscles surrounding the hip. Which by the way are many! One of the best exercises that does not include weights is using a total gym. This is simply a cushioned board on a decline that slides up and down. It is using your own bodyweight and by simply adjusting the angle of your body it reaches muscles surrounding the hip socket that enables me to see just how weak these muscles have become.
The Goal Of Total Hip Replacement Precautions
The goal of rehab from the therapists view was to find muscles that quit working without me even knowing it. The body immediately adjusts to pain and when my hip would cause me pain it would subconsciously start to shut down that specific movement so to not cause any pain. This led to me, unknownly, limiting my range of motion. I quit using muscles that were always natural to use without ever knowing I was doing so.
The first sign that I should of known I was doing this is I lost my butt! My gluteus maximus simply disappeared. My wife was the first to pay tribute to this fact and I simply laughed it off at the time. Little did I know that it was the start of far greater concerns.
So here I am one month into rehab and the results are small. I can do the workouts to start my day and the rest of the day I am able to actually walk where my legs do not feel like rubber. In other words my body, my muscles in particular, are adapting to the change that I am experiencing with the hope of lubricating my hip joint. The total hip replacement precautions that I am going through will help me if I must have surgery to fix the problem. That was the doctors goal and I certainly can respect that. My goal is to avoid seeing my doctor in his office or the surgery room any time soon. By taking hip precautions such as the exercises and rehab discussed here I am hopeful that total hip replacement precautions will enable me to live a better life without the complications of having hip joint pain for the rest of my life!
I will keep you posted as to the outcome!
I hope to cya on the beaches of the world!
Bowpounder