At 26, happily married and with a busy career as a dog groomer, Sophie Cater should be enjoying life to the fullest.
Instead, she struggles to get out of bed in the morning, can’t put her own socks on, and is in pain virtually all day — all because of a hip replacement she underwent in 2023 after developing arthritis.
‘I thought it would give me my mobility back and end my pain, but it has only made it worse; I am less mobile and in more pain than before,” says Sophie.
A year after her surgery, she relies on a daily cocktail of powerful painkillers – gabapentin, amitriptyline and dihydrocodeine – to get through the day and can only walk with crutches.
Sophie Cater thought her hip replacement would be a ‘golden ticket’ to a pain-free life, like so many older patients who had it done. Instead, a year later, she is still dependent on crutches and a daily cocktail of painkillers
She has also had to redecorate her dog grooming salon because she cannot stand for long periods of time, and even neighbors in their 70s who have had hip replacements themselves wonder why she is still ‘hopping around’.
‘It’s disturbing. I feel like they’re saying I’m making it up or milking it, but I was in pain,” says Sophie from Warwickshire.
‘If I had known there was a risk that I would feel worse after the operation, I would never have had it done.’
Around 100,000 people (mainly aged 60 to 80) have hip replacement surgery on the NHS every year.
About 90 percent of new hips last longer than ten years and 80 percent longer than twenty years.
But every year about 5,000 people need revision surgery to repair new hips that have gone wrong – often due to dislocation of the joint, an infection in the joint, loosening of parts or inflammation caused by debris left behind after the procedure.
And research shows that if revision surgery is required, artificial joints do not last nearly as long as the joints that are ‘needed’ the first time.
‘If I have a patient whose hip is failing due to an infection, this may need to be reviewed urgently as there is a risk of sepsis,’ says Caesar Wek, a Dorset-based orthopedic and trauma surgeon who specializes in hip replacements.
Caesar Wek, orthopedic and trauma surgeon, says: ‘Although hip replacements are seen as something that older people have, we are doing them to younger and younger people with osteoarthritis and hip pain.’
Sophie’s hip replacement followed years of pain – initially said to be just ‘growing pains’.
It wasn’t until she was 13 and experiencing excruciating pain in her right hip that she was diagnosed with epiphysis of the upper femur – where the bone at the top of the thigh bone breaks, causing the ball at the top of the bone to fall out of place. . The doctors said it was something she was born with.
Sophie recalls: ‘I missed a lot of school and when I did go to school, other children would bully me – it took a huge toll on me physically and mentally.
‘I had surgery to correct the problem but was later diagnosed with hip dysplasia’, where the socket for the femoral ‘ball’ (the round bit at the top of the thigh) is too shallow. She also had surgery for that.
Sophie’s pain and mobility improved to the point where she could enjoy a social life: she met her future husband, James, and set up her dog grooming service. Everything went well until Sophie started having pain in her thigh a few years ago.
She was only 21, but it took another two years of pestering doctors about her symptoms before she was finally sent for an arthroscopy – where a surgeon inserts a fiber-optic probe into the joint – and diagnosed with osteoarthritis of the hip, a condition normally associated with older age.
Despite being in her early 20s, Sophie was told she would one day need a hip replacement.
Doctors assured her it was one of the most commonly performed operations in Britain, was normally very successful and would improve her quality of life.
“I’d seen countless people get hip replacements – mostly older than me – who were excited about it changing their lives, so I was actually looking forward to seeing the improvement,” says Sophie.
“I knew it would be something I would need one day and saw it as a golden ticket to feel great and improve my life.”
Last year, during a routine appointment with her consultant, she was told her arthritis had progressed significantly.
“It was made quite clear that a hip replacement was now the best thing I could do,” she says.
‘My advisor said he had done many successful exercises and there was a good chance I would be pain free afterwards.’
Mr Wek told Good Health: ‘Although hip replacements are seen as something that older people have, we are doing them to increasingly younger people with osteoarthritis and hip pain.’
Increasing rates of obesity and a more sedentary lifestyle are also factors. Another cause in younger patients is hip impingement, which can damage the hip joint in the long term and cause hip arthritis, says Mr Wek.
Hip impingement occurs when a bump on the ball of the hip bone sits right against the hip socket, or the hip socket ‘squeezes’ against it. Both can damage the surrounding cartilage and cause stiffness and pain that can lead to osteoarthritis – even in young adults.
The defect – informally known as ‘young hip’ and often affects people in their 20s and 30s – can be present from birth, but is also seen in people who participate in sports that involve a lot of twisting or squatting at the hip.
Before the operation, Sophie says she was ‘really looking forward to life afterwards and had no pain anymore’.
But, she says: ‘When I came to afterwards, the excruciating pain returned. I knew it was going to hurt at first, so I wasn’t worried at the time.”
But when six weeks passed and she still hadn’t improved, the alarm bells went off.
“The pain was worse than before the surgery,” she says. “I knew something had gone wrong.”
Her counselor assured her it was part of the healing process. Yet Sophie’s pain continued to worsen, as did her mobility.
‘I joined Facebook groups of people who had had hip replacements and they were all extolling the virtues, posting pictures of themselves running and jogging and being pain-free,’ says Sophie.
‘Still I was in pain. I couldn’t even put my socks on (James has to do it for her) and I was on crutches.’
Around 100,000 people (mainly aged 60 to 80) undergo hip replacement surgery on the NHS every year
Sophie admits that it was not an easy case for her, because she had previously undergone surgery.
But she insists she was told her hip replacement surgery was a common procedure.
However, she later discovered that when surgeons began the procedure, they noticed her pelvis tilted backwards – likely as a result of the previous surgery.
“This made fitting the new hip more complex,” says Sophie.
‘Doctors insist this surgery should have worked and my only hope now is steroid injections (to try and ease the pain and inflammation). I wish I’d never had it done.’
Mr Wek says the success of hip replacements in young people depends on why they do it in the first place.
“The bigger the problem, the less successful it can be,” he says.
But it’s essential to stay active, to maintain hip muscle strength and keep your weight down, says Mr Wek. “If you take care of your hip this way, it will take care of you too.”
At her most recent appointment, Sophie was told that she now also has a condition called iliopsoas tendonitis – or ‘snapping hip syndrome’ – where the tendons in the hip joint slip out of position and also cause a ‘cracking’ or ‘snapping’ sensation. cause noise. like pain.
This may also require surgery at some point. And she has bursitis – an inflammation of the bursa (the fluid-filled sacs that protect the hip joint).
“For now,” says Sophie, “the only thing I have is pain relief.”