It takes a long time to recover from hip replacement surgery. You must consider some steps before the surgery to stay healthy and avoid complications from the surgery.
Hip replacement implies a major surgery. Hence one must take care of some details for successful surgery and reduced pain in the hip.
- Choosing surgeon: the most crucial step in surgery is to choose a surgeon you are comfortable with. You must have a doctor with whom you can communicate easily and who can apprise you of all details regarding the surgery. Since you need to go for lifelong follow-up sessions, choose a doctor with whom you can work for a long time.
- Being prepared financially: For this major surgery, you must be prepared to meet total hip replacement implant cost in India.
- Medical evaluation: Before the surgery, you will be subject to routine tests to ascertain if you are ready for surgery. Some of these are ECG, blood tests and chest X-ray. Also your medical team will check whether chronic conditions like high blood pressure and asthma are controlled. This information will be used by your medical doctor to determine your risks of complications from surgery.
- Check of medication: remember that certain types of medication, even herbal supplements may raise risk of bleeding and other complications in the process of surgery. So ensure your medical team is aware about all your medication, herbal medicines or supplements which you are consuming. You may be advised to stop some medicines before surgery.
- Blood transfusion: It is quite possible that during or after such a major surgery, you may need blood transfusion. In this case, using your own blood is much suitable. For this, you can donate your own blood 3 to 4 weeks prior to surgery. Check with the hospital about their policy of storing your own blood. Another step is to advise medication for you like Procrit to enhance production of red blood cells in the body. By this, patient will have adequate blood reserves to prepare for surgery.
- Dental care: Call your dentist after scheduling of your hip replacement surgery. It is important to consult dentist before surgery to do any work on bad teeth. Infection from dental abscess can spread to the place of surgery and cause major complications. This is rare but cannot be ruled out.
One must also apprise dentist after you have undergone hip surgery. He will advise you to take antibiotics prior to any major cleaning work or invasive dental work to avoid infection in your new hip joint.
- Physical therapy: You will be advised to consult a physical therapist to find out about exercises for recovery program as well as information on assistive devices like shower seats, walkers etc which may be used after surgery. As per studies, if you are familiar with assistive devices before surgery, you will learn to use them and heal faster after surgery.
- Regarding smoking: If you are a regular smoker, you will be asked to quit much before surgery. This is because it is an impediment in and slows down bone healing. As per studies, on an average, smokers often require repeat surgery compared to non-smokers.
These are some facts to check before hip replacement surgery. One positive fact is that total hip replacement surgery cost in India is much low compared to other countries and so you can easily undergo the procedure without much financial burden.