Recovery time after surgery
Hello,
I had a surgery for a femoral neck fracture about 2 years ago and now I want to remove the 3 screws I have in my leg.
How long it usually takes to recover after this operation? Do I have to wear cruches after surgery? How long I have to stay in hospital?
Thanks a lot,
Daniel, 30-years old male
Comments
not sure about ur doc but we peform this as an outpt procedure and would put u on crutches for 1-2 wks because the femoral neck will be weak initially due to the 3 holes in it. those holes will fill in though and u should be back to normal pretty quick especially with ur age. are the screws causing problems? if not i would suggest not removing them.
I performed the surgery last Thursday (13.03), now I'm walking with crutches just because the wound should heal and hurts a bit in certain positions. I feel like in 2-3 weeks I'll drop them totally :)
My doctor recommended me to stay away for 3 months from putting extra heavy on my bones (max 5kg).
The screws were not bothering me before but I understood is good to remove them as they represent a non natural part of the body and in time it may happen to cause me some sort of discomfort or other effects...
Anyway from 3 screws only one could be removed due to technical issues like tools and grips on the screws....My personal feeling was that it's safer to still keep one screw and only to remove it with a second surgery after a while, but, if this happened I take it that it's for my best.
I'll have to think if I'll want to repeat the surgery or I'll have to invent some tools for removing the other two screws as their heads seems to be pretty damaged (bad material or too mane re-usages)
Thanks for your post, it's been a while since my original one which got no feedback till now :D
-dan
sounds like ur doc stripped the screw heads while trying to remove the screws. again my suggestion would be to have no further surgery unless the two remaining screws start becoming problematic (ex. rubbing on ur iliotibial band and causing discomfort) otherwise the removal will more than likely do more damage than good.
I'm curious to see how the bone will look like in several weeks so I'll make an x-ray if the doc will recommend it. I'll post a link to the pictures here :)
What's you qualification? sorry for asking, I want to know if I can consider your advise as another opinion coming from somebody with education in the field.
It's always good to ask for a 2nd opinion, my doctor told me that I should stay with them too, he even stopped doing more damage as he considered that he can't remove the screws (I was awake all the time during the surgery). So if you share his opinion that I should keep them I'll do it.
thanks for your time,
dan
not sure i'm the most qualified but i do know a thing or two. i'm a Physician Assistant (PA-C) with a very well respected orthopaedic surgeon that specializes in knee and hip replacement. i do and see some of everything in ortho, such as ur case. i did remove three screws from a 75 year old lady approx. 2 months ago because she was having symptoms due to the screws rubbing on the it band. she was so thin that u could feel the three screws through the skin. i have seen her twice in clinic since surgery and she is doing great. and yes u will be able to see the bone tunnel on x-ray from the screw removal and yes it will go away with subsequent x-rays. i would recommend u following the progresion on x-ray. it is cool to watch the body at work. hope i helped.
Joined: 2008-01-18