Hip Replacement

My sadly departed mate Charlie was out in his Solo three weeks after his first hip replacement, two-weeks after his second. 

Slightly different, but I had an ankle replacement in January, which is taking a long time to fully heal. Currently I'm walking less than I did before, which isn't great since the main reason for having it was to be able to do proper walking again. However, what I can do without problems is sail and cycle (as I could before) - the big difference being that neither of those put a lot of weight on your leg joints. No one has suggested that I should not do either (running and squash are banned, but I gave up running for buses some years ago, and squash a lot earlier!). In fact my physio seems keen on me doing as much as I can manage of both.

Edited by PeterG - 13 Jul 17 at 7:35pm

The issue will not be impact with a hip replacement but stability.
You will have been given a list of hip precautions to follow for the first few weeks, but stability is defined by how well aligned the hip is, the head size and the quality of the soft tissues and muscles around the hip capsule.
The position of danger is usually with the hip very flexed and internally rotated, so the hip can pop out the back.
As a result, although I no longer do hip replacement surgery (upper limb now) I encourage sailors to choose a sit in rather on boat with a boom that is not too low. To be fair a knee replacement seems to be more of an issue with dinghy sailing due to loss of flexion beyond about 110 degrees.
Unfortunately other joint replacements are not as reliable regarding outcome or longevity.

Andy

It is always great to have posts from Andy given his expertise in terms of sailing (always used to beat me a long time ago in the Solution) and as a surgeon.  I gave up sailing hiking boats 18 months ago after experiencing unexplained hip pain when hiking hard, particularly in rough seas.  The MRI scan revealed arthritis in both hips including a number of pea sized cysts in the femoral head but the area of damage was uneven and different for each hip, which I think is why there was only pain in one when hiking.  At the time the only other activity that caused pain was sitting down in one position for too long e.g. driving long distances.  I wasn’t yet at the replacement stage so the consultant (who kite surfs) and I discussed sailing a trapeze boat instead and so far this has worked well and I have been able to carry on sailing.  I think this is also helping to maintain muscle tone with all the pushing out involved and, of course, all the extra swimming that seems to come with learning to helm from a trapeze.  Not sure how this will work after the replacements but we shall see.  Perhaps if I just tighten the harness it will keep everything in place?!

Peter

It is indeed the Farr but I was watching some RS800s close up at the weekend and couldn't help noticing how high the boom was (see Andy's comments earlier) and also ... how much fun it looked. Could this be the ideal boat for someone with new hips?    49er probably OK from this point of view also.