Dr. Albright discusses alternatives to hip replacement surgery.

Transcript of video:
What are my alternatives to hip replacement surgery?

My name is Dr. Dan Albright at the Raleigh Orthopedic Clinic in Raleigh, NC. And I regularly see patients with hip arthritis, hip problems, and people who need hip replacements someday.

But there are other things you can do first and should do first before any surgery.

The first thing is to adjust your activities. Meaning if you are a marathon runner and you are getting some early arthritis, pounding on your hip is not the best thing to do.

Swimming is good. Biking is good. The elliptical trainer is good. Some weights are good. But highimpact pounding is not good for a
joint that is wearing out. It's going to wear it out quicker. You'll lose your cartilage quicker.

So adjust your life. Which is upsetting sometimes, but you want to scale it down to lower impact things and you want to tone up. If you have good muscle tone your joints just move better.

Keeping your weight down is a good thing and that's a whole other separate topic. Of course, it's hard to lose weight. But losing weight helps joint pain. No question it helps foot pain, knee pain, hip pain.

Antiinflammatories have a role if your doctor says you can take them. Some people have kidney disease or stomach troubles and cannot take antiinflammatory medicines like ibuprofen, Aleve, Naprosyn, aspirin. Tylenol is also a choice that is not an antiinflammatory so you can do that. That goes well with people with kidney troubles
or stomach troubles.

Shots. Steroid shots have a role so you can get a cortisone steroid shot. That definitely helps people for a good while.

These are some of the basics. And think about the basics because you want to put off hip replacement surgery for as long as you can. These replacements only last 20 years or so. And you want to try everything else first and postpone surgery as best you can.

If you are interested I am happy to speak with you at any time at The Raleigh Orthopedic Clinic. I'm happy to have you come in for a consult and talk about nonoperative treatments for hip arthritis and talk about surgery, as needed if you come to that.

Thank you.

To schedule a consult call (919) 8636808 or visit http://DanAlbrightMD.com