Revision Hip Replacement

Hip replacement revisions are considered to be highly safe and effective procedures that provide patients with much-needed pain relief and mobility. The success rate is extremely high and only becoming more reliable as prosthetic technology becomes increasingly more sophisticated. By the time a patient has experienced a mechanical failure or issue with their original hip replacement, it is likely that the next model used will be much more advanced, leading to fewer and fewer revision treatments. 

In most cases, no. It is not a great idea to use stairs immediately after your procedure since your wounds are still fresh, and the prosthesis will still be settling. After a few weeks, however, you will likely be able to begin using stairs and other more strenuous activities. This process is often guided during physical therapy sessions, where you can safely push your boundaries under medical supervision. Regardless, though, you should always wait until a surgeon clears you to take these steps so you can be sure you are not putting your health or long-term success at risk. A few weeks of patience and some work in PT will be highly rewarded with decades of functionality and pain relief.

If you are experiencing issues or inconveniences with your hip replacement hardware, such as pain, poor mobility, dislocation, infection or fracture, then you are likely going to be in need of a hip replacement revision surgery. When a hip replacement prosthesis is behaving as intended, none of these side effects exist. Going through the surgery and recovery period is considered by the vast majority of our patients to be way better than dealing with constant irritations, pain or discomfort with no end in sight.

The typical hip replacement or revision hip replacement will last between 15 and 20 years without external factors like trauma. This is good news for patients in need of a hip replacement since it means surgeries and replacements will be few and far between. The mileage on the hip replacement revision depends a lot on the amount of wear it undergoes and your unique reaction to the treatment. 

While hip replacement revision surgery is a standard surgery that is highly practiced by our medical team, the surgery itself does take a fair amount of time to complete because of how extensive the process is. In most cases, the procedure will take between two and three hours, but it is normal for that to shift slightly up or down depending on the surgical conditions. While it is a lengthy process for the surgeon and surgical team, you will be under general anesthesia or IV sedation during the entire process, so it will feel like you fell asleep for a nap and woke up to a replaced brand new hip replacement. 

Unfortunately, there is no consolidated database on how many hip replacement revisions are performed each year. But we can extrapolate a bit based on data we do have. For example, according to Harvard Health, there are about 330,000 hip replacements performed each year. There is a study that also shows that by the 10-year mark, only 4.4% of those patients required revision surgery. That is about 14,500 total revision procedures. The same study showed that by the 20-year mark, 15% of patients needed revisions. That comes out to 49,500 total procedures performed. While this doesn’t give us a perfect answer, it lets us know that revision surgeries are common, routine procedures performed regularly by trained surgeons.

One of the most common issues patients have when it comes to hip replacements is dislocation. Up to 10% of patients with initial hip replacements will experience dislocation at some point, while up to 25% of hip replacement revision patients will develop the same condition. A constraint is used in a procedure known as constrained total hip arthroplasty. It is a way of locking in certain elements of the hips to help prevent dislocations from occuring. 

There is no universal rule for how far you should be walking after your hip replacement revision. Some patients are able to do multiple sessions of 30-minute walks by four weeks, while others may still be having difficulty doing a single session. The best way to move forward is to work closely with your surgeon and physical therapist to ensure that you are safely pushing your boundaries and working toward returning to normal life and activities. Your pace is your own, and you should listen carefully to your body and not overexert yourself. 

We recommend that all of our patients avoid sleeping on their sides for four to six weeks (or until cleared by their physician). Putting pressure on that side of your implant could cause problems for the wound and prosthesis, which could, in turn, damage your recovery process and your long-term results.