Thursday, October 9, 2008

Knee and Hip Replacements

Both knee and hip replacements are becoming more common among younger and younger people. Many play hard at tennis and other sports and are ruining their joints. Often, a younger person thinks because he has had a new knee or hip replaced, that he/she can still do the running and jumping they did before. This is not true. The problem arises when they do this and find they are going to need another replacement.

It is bad enough when older people need their joints replaced. They can wait too long and the longer you wait, the longer the recovery time can be. I remember the doctor telling me distinctly "no running or jumping" with my new knee replacement. Another problem is when they have had the knee replacement for a long time, the bone in the thigh begins to wear down from constant use if they are very active. Then it is often a problem for the doctor to find enough good bone to insert another knee replacement. That sounds like a bad situation to me.

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