Hip Replacement Alternatives: What Helps, and What Only Delays

Orthopedic surgeons have an unglamorous screening question they sometimes ask: can you still put on your own socks? It sounds almost comic until the morning you find yourself sitting on the edge of the bed, hooking a sock over your toes with a coat hanger because your hip won’t bend that far anymore.

Long before that morning, most people have already typed some version of the same search: how do I fix my hip without a replacement? The internet answers loudly. Regenerative clinics promise new cartilage. Wellness sites promise the right stretch. Somewhere in the noise sits a quieter truth that deserves the headline instead.

Some alternatives genuinely change how a painful hip behaves. Others simply move the surgery date. Knowing which is which, before you spend a year and several thousand dollars finding out, is the entire point of this article.

The honest answer: some alternatives help, others only buy time

Every option on the alternatives list falls into one of two buckets, and almost no one selling those options will tell you which bucket theirs is in.

The first bucket changes how your hip functions. Strengthening the muscles around the joint, shedding load through weight management or a cane, and pacing activity all reduce the mechanical stress on damaged cartilage. These interventions have decades of evidence behind them, and for many people with mild to moderate hip osteoarthritis they postpone, sometimes indefinitely, the need for surgery. Mayo Clinic and the NHS both list them as first-line treatment, not consolation prizes.

The second bucket masks symptoms without altering the joint. Steroid injections, most supplements, and, despite the marketing, current regenerative injections belong here. They can be perfectly reasonable choices. A steroid injection that gets you through a daughter’s wedding or a physical therapy program has real value. The problem starts when temporary relief is sold as repair.

Here is the uncomfortable center of it: osteoarthritis is the loss of cartilage, and adult cartilage has almost no blood supply and very limited ability to heal. Nothing currently available, no injection, no laser, no supplement, has been shown to regrow cartilage in an arthritic human hip. Once you accept that, the whole landscape gets easier to read. The question stops being “what fixes this?” and becomes “what helps me live well, for how long, at what cost and risk?” That question actually has good answers.

How can I fix my hip without a replacement? First, know what's broken

“Hip pain” is not one diagnosis, and the right alternative depends entirely on the cause. A surprising amount of pain blamed on the hip joint doesn’t come from the joint at all.

Pain on the outside of the hip, worse when lying on that side, often points to trochanteric bursitis or gluteal tendon irritation, soft-tissue problems that frequently improve with physical therapy and rarely need a replacement. Pain radiating from the low back down the buttock may be spinal, in which case no hip procedure will touch it. A catching or pinching sensation in a younger, active person can signal a labral tear or hip impingement, which are treated very differently from arthritis.

True hip osteoarthritis tends to announce itself in the groin or the front of the thigh, sometimes as far down as the knee. Classic features include stiffness after sitting, trouble with socks and shoes, and a slowly shrinking comfortable walking distance. An examination plus a standing X-ray usually settles the question.

Why does this matter for a piece about alternatives? Because the person who “cured” their hip with stretching on a forum may never have had arthritis, while your bone-on-bone joint responds differently. Before spending money on any alternative, and certainly before an expensive cash-pay injection, get an accurate diagnosis. It is the cheapest, highest-yield step on this entire list, and every reputable option downstream depends on it.

Can you avoid surgery with a bone-on-bone hip?

Sometimes, yes, and that surprises people. “Bone-on-bone” describes an X-ray, not a life sentence. It means the cartilage cushion has worn through in at least part of the joint, so the femoral head and socket contact each other directly. It sounds terminal. It isn’t automatically.

X-ray severity and pain correlate more loosely than you would expect. Researchers have long observed people with dramatic-looking arthritis on imaging who walk comfortably, and people with modest changes who can barely climb stairs. Pain in osteoarthritis comes from inflamed joint lining, irritated bone, tight surrounding muscles, and how the nervous system processes all of it, not just from the missing cartilage itself. That is why exercise, weight management, and pacing can still reduce pain even in advanced disease: they quiet the parts of the problem that are still modifiable.

What a bone-on-bone hip cannot do is grow its cushion back. So the realistic goals shift. You are no longer preventing arthritis; you are managing it. For some people, especially those with lower physical demands or higher surgical risk, good management is enough for years. For others, the joint keeps stiffening, the limp deepens, and sleep starts to suffer, and at that point, alternatives stop being alternatives and become delay.

A fair benchmark from Mayo Clinic’s guidance: replacement enters the conversation when pain persists despite nonsurgical treatment and interferes with walking, sleep, work, or daily tasks. Until you’re there, avoiding surgery is a legitimate plan, not denial.

Exercise and physical therapy: the strongest evidence on this list

If one alternative deserves the word “treatment” without an asterisk, it’s this one. Structured exercise is the only nonsurgical option consistently shown to improve both pain and function in hip osteoarthritis, which is why the NHS, Mayo Clinic, and essentially every major arthritis guideline put it first.

The logic is mechanical. Your hip doesn’t carry your weight alone, muscles do much of the work. Strong gluteal and thigh muscles act like shock absorbers, controlling how force lands on the joint with each step. When pain makes you move less, those muscles shrink, the joint absorbs more raw load, pain worsens, and you move even less. Exercise breaks that spiral from the muscle side, since the cartilage side can’t be fixed.

A typical program blends three elements: strengthening (bridges, sit-to-stands, side-lying leg work for the gluteals), low-impact aerobic movement (walking, cycling, water exercise, water is a gift here, because buoyancy strips most body weight off the joint), and gentle range-of-motion work to fight stiffness. Expect six to twelve weeks before judging results; muscle adapts on its own schedule, not yours.

Two honest caveats. Exercise reduces pain; it does not regrow cartilage, and improvement is usually meaningful rather than miraculous. And soreness during a new program is normal, but sharp groin pain that worsens session after session is a signal to have the plan adjusted, not to push through. A physical therapist earns their fee precisely in that calibration.

Does losing weight actually help a painful hip?

The physics here are humbling. Walking loads the hip joint at several times body weight, biomechanical studies put it in the range of two to three times body weight for level walking, and higher for stairs, running, or carrying loads. The joint pays that multiple on every step, and an average adult takes thousands of steps a day.

Run the arithmetic in reverse and weight management becomes one of the few levers that reduces the force on damaged cartilage with every single stride, all day, without a prescription. Even a modest reduction, five to ten percent of body weight, has been associated with measurable improvements in pain and function in lower-limb osteoarthritis. You don’t need a dramatic transformation for the joint to notice.

Two things make this advice easy to give and hard to live. First, hip pain itself limits the activity people usually rely on to manage weight, which is where low-load movement earns its keep. Cycling, swimming, water walking, and rowing let you spend energy without hammering the joint. Second, nobody’s hip improves because they were shamed into a diet. The evidence supports gradual, sustainable change built with a clinician or dietitian, not crash approaches.

One more underappreciated point: weight management and exercise reinforce each other. The strength you build makes movement cheaper and safer; the load you remove makes strength work more comfortable. Of everything in the “genuinely helps” bucket, this pairing has the best claim to actually changing your trajectory rather than papering over it.

Canes, pacing, and small changes that punch above their weight

Few medical devices are as effective, as cheap, and as fiercely resisted as a cane. Used in the hand opposite the painful hip, a cane changes the lever arm of each step and lets your arm shoulder work the gluteal muscles would otherwise do, meaningfully reducing the force crossing the joint. People often delay using one for years out of pride, then are startled by how much farther they can walk. If a full cane feels like too much, trekking poles offer similar offloading with better optics.

Activity modification is the quieter sibling of exercise. The idea isn’t to move less; it’s to spend your movement budget deliberately. A few examples that clinicians recommend routinely:

• Swap one long daily walk for two or three shorter ones, so the joint gets recovery windows.
• Trade high-impact activities (running, court sports) for cycling or water exercise on flare days rather than stopping entirely.
• Raise seat heights, a firm chair with arms, a raised toilet seat, because rising from low surfaces produces some of the highest hip forces of daily life.
• Use long-handled tools for socks, shoes, and reaching, which protect the exact motions arthritis steals first.
• Keep walking routes on even ground while you rebuild strength; uneven terrain multiplies stabilizing demands on the joint.

None of this is glamorous. All of it is free or nearly free, carries no risk worth mentioning, and buys comfort you can bank immediately, which is more than several four-figure alternatives on this list can claim.

What about pain relievers and anti-inflammatory medication?

Medication has a legitimate seat at this table, as long as everyone is clear about what chair it’s sitting in. Oral pain relievers and anti-inflammatory options, including over-the-counter versions and topical rubs applied to the skin, can take the edge off osteoarthritis pain and, used strategically, make exercise and daily life possible. Mayo Clinic and the NHS both include them in standard first-line care.

What they cannot do is alter the joint. No pain medication slows cartilage loss or changes the arc of the disease. Their job is to lower the volume on symptoms while the interventions that actually change function, strengthening, weight management, pacing, do their slower work. Thought of that way, a well-timed dose before a physical therapy session is medication used well; escalating amounts used to keep running on an angry joint is medication used as a delay tactic.

Safety is the other half of the honest conversation. Anti-inflammatory medicines carry stomach, kidney, and cardiovascular considerations, especially with long-term use, at older ages, or alongside other prescriptions. Topical versions deliver relief to a fairly superficial area with less of the body-wide exposure, though the hip sits deep enough that they help some people more than others. The practical rule from mainstream guidance is consistent: use the lowest amount that works, for the shortest useful period, and loop in your clinician or pharmacist before making anything a daily habit, particularly if you have heart, kidney, or stomach history.

A bridge, in other words. A good one. But a bridge needs to lead somewhere.

Steroid and gel injections: real relief, real limits

Injections occupy the murky middle of the alternatives conversation, genuinely useful, routinely oversold.

Corticosteroid injections deliver a potent anti-inflammatory directly into the joint. Because the hip sits deep beneath muscle, these are typically done with ultrasound or X-ray guidance to be sure the medicine lands inside the capsule. When they work, relief usually arrives within days and lasts weeks to a few months. That window can be valuable: it can confirm the joint (rather than the back) as the pain source, calm a flare, or open the door to a strengthening program that pain had slammed shut.

The limits deserve equal billing. Relief is temporary and shrinks with disease severity. And there is evidence that repeated steroid injections may accelerate cartilage loss in weight-bearing joints, which is why clinicians generally space them out and treat them as an occasional tool, not a maintenance plan. A hip that needs an injection every three months to stay livable is a hip telling you something.

Viscosupplementation, so-called gel injections meant to restore lubrication, has a more discouraging record in the hip. Most of the supportive research was done in knees, and even there results are mixed; for hip osteoarthritis, major guidelines generally do not recommend it because trials haven’t shown consistent benefit over placebo. Insurers often decline to cover it for the hip for the same reason, which means patients frequently pay out of pocket for the least-proven injection on the menu. That combination should give anyone pause.

Stem cells and PRP: what regenerative medicine actually shows

This is where hope and marketing overlap most heavily, so precision matters. Two treatments dominate the space: platelet-rich plasma (PRP), made by concentrating platelets from your own blood, and so-called stem cell injections, usually cells drawn from your bone marrow or fat. The advertised premise is that these injections repair or regrow cartilage.

What the evidence actually shows is more modest. Studies of PRP for hip osteoarthritis are few, small, and inconsistent, some report short-term pain relief roughly comparable to other injections, others show no advantage over placebo. For stem cell injections, high-quality trials in the hip are scarcer still, and no rigorous study has demonstrated regrowth of cartilage in an arthritic human hip. Imaging follow-up in the research that exists does not show joints rebuilding themselves. Regulators in the United States have repeatedly cautioned consumers about clinics selling unapproved stem cell treatments for orthopedic conditions.

None of this means the field is fake. Regenerative research is serious science, and it may one day change this article. It means the products being sold today, often for several thousand dollars cash because insurance rightly won’t cover them, are running ahead of their proof. A useful test: ask any clinic offering these injections for the published trial data specific to hip osteoarthritis, and ask what percentage of their patients still proceed to replacement within five years. Confident answers to both questions are rare.

If you try PRP with clear eyes and spare money, that’s your call. Just file it in the delay bucket, not the repair one.

Hip resurfacing: the 'alternative' that's still major surgery

Search for hip replacement alternatives and resurfacing appears near the top of the results, which is a little like listing a different flight as an alternative to flying. Resurfacing is major hip surgery, done through a similar incision, with a similar hospital course and rehabilitation. What differs is what happens to your bone.

In a standard total hip replacement, the femoral head, the ball, is removed entirely and replaced with an implant anchored down the thigh bone. In resurfacing, the ball is preserved: the surgeon trims and reshapes the damaged surface and caps it with a metal covering, while the socket is lined much as it would be in a replacement. The appeal is bone preservation, a larger ball size that may lower dislocation risk, and, for some highly active people, a return to demanding activity.

The candidacy window is narrow. Resurfacing is generally offered to younger, active men with strong bone quality and larger frames. Outcomes have been notably worse in women and in people with smaller bones or reduced bone density, partly because the preserved femoral neck can fracture. The metal-on-metal bearing also raised concerns over the past two decades, since wear can release metal ions; several designs were withdrawn, and patients with the remaining implants are typically monitored over time.

For the right patient in experienced hands, resurfacing is a legitimate choice worth discussing. What it is not, despite the search results, is a way to avoid surgery.

Osteotomy and arthroscopy: for the right hip at the right time

Two other surgical options appear on alternatives lists, and both share a defining feature: they work best before arthritis is advanced, which is exactly when most people aren’t yet looking for them.

An osteotomy involves cutting and realigning bone, usually the pelvis, sometimes the femur, to redirect weight-bearing forces onto healthier cartilage. Its classic use is hip dysplasia, where a shallow socket concentrates load on a small patch of cartilage and wears it out decades early. In a younger person with dysplasia and limited arthritis, a periacetabular osteotomy can genuinely change the joint’s future, potentially delaying or avoiding replacement for many years. It is a substantial operation with months of recovery, offered at specialized centers, and it makes little sense once cartilage is broadly gone.

Hip arthroscopy is keyhole surgery: small incisions, a camera, instruments to repair a torn labrum or reshape the bone bumps of femoroacetabular impingement. For the right younger patient with mechanical symptoms, catching, pinching, pain with deep flexion, it can be effective. Here’s the caveat that matters for this article: arthroscopy performs poorly as an arthritis treatment. Studies consistently show that people with significant existing cartilage loss get little lasting benefit and often proceed to replacement within a few years anyway. A surgeon offering to “clean out” a clearly arthritic hip through a scope should prompt a second opinion.

The pattern across both procedures is the same: they help specific problems in specific windows. Outside those windows, they mostly add a surgery without subtracting the one you were avoiding.

Supplements, acupuncture, heat and cold: worth trying?

The gentle end of the alternatives spectrum deserves a fair, unsentimental audit.

Glucosamine and chondroitin are the best-known joint supplements, and the research verdict after decades of trials is genuinely mixed: some studies show modest pain relief, many well-designed ones show no benefit beyond placebo, and most of the research involved knees rather than hips. No study has shown these supplements rebuild cartilage. They appear safe for most people, though they can interact with blood thinners and affect blood sugar, so mention them to your clinician. Turmeric and fish oil follow a similar pattern, plausible anti-inflammatory mechanisms, small or inconsistent human results.

Acupuncture has evidence of modest, short-term pain relief in osteoarthritis, though how much exceeds placebo remains debated; for someone seeking drug-free relief with minimal risk, it’s a defensible experiment. Heat and cold are honest workhorses: warmth loosens a stiff hip before activity, cold calms a flared one afterward, and both cost almost nothing.

A reasonable framework for this entire category: low risk, low cost, low ceiling. If a supplement or modality noticeably helps you within two to three months, the price is trivial and the harm negligible. If it doesn’t, stop paying for it, supplement budgets have a way of quietly exceeding physical therapy copays. And treat any product claiming to “regenerate” or “rebuild” your joint as a red flag; that claim outruns the evidence for every item on the shelf.

How the main alternatives compare

Laid side by side, the options sort themselves with unusual clarity. Evidence strength below reflects mainstream guidance from sources such as Mayo Clinic and the NHS for hip osteoarthritis specifically, several treatments score better in knees than hips.

Option	What evidence shows	Typical benefit window	Helps or delays?
Exercise / physical therapy	Strong; consistent improvement in pain and function	Ongoing, as long as maintained	Helps
Weight management	Strong; less load per step, less pain	Ongoing	Helps
Cane, pacing, home changes	Solid mechanical rationale, low risk	Immediate and ongoing	Helps
Pain-relieving medication	Moderate short-term relief; no effect on the joint	Hours to days per use	Delays (usefully)
Steroid injection	Moderate short-term relief; repetition may harm cartilage	Weeks to a few months	Delays
Gel injection (viscosupplementation)	Weak for hips; generally not guideline-recommended	Inconsistent	Delays, at best
PRP / stem cell injections	Limited, inconsistent; no proven cartilage regrowth	Unpredictable	Delays, unproven
Hip resurfacing	Effective for narrow candidates; still major surgery	Years, implant-dependent	Different surgery, not avoidance
Osteotomy / arthroscopy	Effective for specific pre-arthritic problems only	Years, if well-selected	Helps early, not in advanced OA

Notice the pattern: everything in the “helps” rows is inexpensive, unglamorous, and effortful. Everything expensive and effortless sits lower in the table. Medicine is rarely that tidy, but here it nearly is.

Can I live without having a hip replacement?

Yes, and it’s worth saying plainly, because the fear of “needing” surgery drives a lot of anxious decision-making. Hip replacement is quality-of-life surgery, not lifesaving surgery. Nobody dies of an unreplaced arthritic hip, and no calendar forces your hand. Plenty of people manage moderate hip arthritis for the rest of their lives with exercise, weight management, occasional medication, and adjusted expectations, and consider that a fine bargain against an operation.

Living without a replacement does carry costs, though, and they compound quietly. An arthritic hip that keeps stiffening pulls your gait out of shape; the limp shifts load to the other hip, the knees, and the lower back, which is why untreated hip arthritis so often collects companion aches. Muscles around a painful joint waste from disuse, and pain that interrupts sleep erodes everything else, mood, energy, blood pressure, patience. Activity you give up doesn’t always come back easily.

There’s also a timing consideration surgeons discuss candidly: people who wait until they are severely debilitated tend to enter surgery weaker, stiffer, and with more entrenched movement compensations, which can make rehabilitation slower and outcomes somewhat less complete. The goal isn’t to rush anyone toward an operating room. It’s to keep the decision active rather than passive, reassessing every six to twelve months whether the alternatives are still holding, rather than discovering one day that “managing” quietly became “enduring.” Declining surgery is a choice you’re entitled to make. Just make it on purpose.

When to see a doctor about hip pain

Most hip arthritis moves slowly enough that you can schedule care at your convenience. Some situations shouldn’t wait, and a few can’t wait at all.

Seek urgent or emergency care if you have hip pain after a fall or other injury and cannot bear weight, if the leg looks shortened or rotated, if the joint appears deformed, or if hip pain comes with fever, chills, warmth, or redness: the last combination can signal a joint infection, which is a genuine emergency. Sudden severe pain without injury, or pain with new numbness or weakness in the leg, also deserves prompt evaluation.

Book a routine appointment when the pattern changes rather than waiting for crisis: pain that persists beyond a few weeks despite rest and over-the-counter care, stiffness that steals tasks like socks, shoes, or getting out of a car, pain that wakes you at night, a limp others have started noticing, or a walking distance that keeps shrinking. Night pain in particular tends to mark the point where nonsurgical measures start losing ground, and it’s worth reporting specifically.

Come prepared, and the visit works harder for you. Note where the pain lives (groin versus side versus buttock: it genuinely changes the diagnosis), what provokes it, what you’ve already tried and for how long, and what activities you’ve quietly given up. That last list matters most; clinicians treat function, not just X-rays, and the shoes you no longer tie tell them more than any pain score.

What can I do instead of a hip replacement? A realistic plan

Pull the evidence together and a sensible sequence emerges, one most orthopedic clinicians would recognize.

Start with a real diagnosis: exam and standing X-ray, so you know whether you’re treating arthritis, a tendon problem, or your back. Then commit, genuinely, for three months, to the proven core: a structured strengthening and low-impact exercise program, weight management if it applies to you, a cane or poles for longer distances, and home adjustments that lower joint load. Layer in medication tactically, at the lowest useful amount, to make the exercise possible rather than to mask decline. Most people who successfully postpone surgery for years are living some version of exactly this plan.

Use injections the way you’d use a spare tire: occasionally, purposefully, and never as the whole strategy. Approach regenerative injections, if at all, with your eyes open and your expectations filed under “unproven.” If you’re younger with dysplasia or impingement rather than diffuse arthritis, ask specifically about joint-preserving surgery: that conversation has a deadline that plain arthritis doesn’t.

Then hold a standing review with yourself twice a year. Three questions do the work: Is my pain stable or worsening? Is my world, walking distance, sleep, activities, expanding or shrinking? Am I using more medication for the same life? Two worsening answers, sustained across a couple of check-ins, are a reasonable signal to sit down with a surgeon, not to be sold anything, but to understand your specific trade-offs while you’re still strong enough to recover well from whichever path you choose.

Frequently asked questions

How can I fix my hip without a replacement?

You can often manage, though not literally fix, an arthritic hip with structured exercise and physical therapy, weight management, a cane, activity pacing, and short-term pain medication. These have the strongest evidence for reducing pain and improving function. What no current nonsurgical treatment can do is regrow lost cartilage, so the realistic goal is living well with the joint you have, not restoring it to new.

Can I live without having a hip replacement?

Yes. Hip replacement is quality-of-life surgery, not lifesaving surgery, and no one is obligated to have it. Many people manage moderate arthritis indefinitely with exercise, weight control, and occasional medication. The trade-offs of declining surgery are progressive stiffness, muscle loss, disturbed sleep, and compensatory strain on the back and knees, so the decision is worth revisiting deliberately every six to twelve months rather than by default.

Can you avoid surgery with a bone-on-bone hip?

Sometimes. Bone-on-bone describes the X-ray, and pain doesn’t track imaging perfectly, some people with severe X-ray changes function well for years using exercise, weight management, and walking aids. Those measures can still reduce pain because inflammation and muscle weakness remain treatable even when cartilage isn’t. But nothing rebuilds the lost cushion, so if pain worsens despite good nonsurgical care and starts disrupting sleep and daily life, alternatives become delay rather than avoidance.

What can I do instead of getting a hip replacement?

The evidence-backed core is a strengthening and low-impact exercise program, weight management if applicable, a cane or trekking poles, home modifications, and tactical use of pain medication. Occasional steroid injections can calm flares. Younger patients with dysplasia or impingement may qualify for joint-preserving surgery such as osteotomy or arthroscopy. Regenerative injections and gel injections exist but lack solid evidence for hip arthritis, so treat them as unproven optional extras.

Do stem cell or PRP injections regrow hip cartilage?

No study has shown that stem cell or PRP injections regrow cartilage in an arthritic human hip. Research in hips is limited and inconsistent; some small studies report short-term pain relief, others show no benefit beyond placebo. US regulators have cautioned consumers about clinics selling unproven stem cell treatments. If you consider these injections, understand you’re paying, often thousands of dollars out of pocket, for possible temporary relief, not repair.

How long does a steroid injection last in the hip?

When a corticosteroid injection works, relief usually begins within days and lasts anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, with shorter benefit in more advanced arthritis. Hip injections are typically done with ultrasound or X-ray guidance because the joint sits deep. Clinicians space injections out because repeated doses may accelerate cartilage loss in weight-bearing joints, so they’re best used occasionally, for flares or to enable rehab, not as maintenance.

Is hip resurfacing better than a hip replacement?

Neither is better across the board; resurfacing is a different surgery with a narrower audience. It preserves the femoral head, uses a larger ball that may lower dislocation risk, and appeals to younger, highly active patients, typically men with strong, larger bones. Outcomes have been worse in women and people with smaller or less dense bones, and metal-on-metal wear requires monitoring. It’s still major surgery with comparable recovery, not a way to avoid the operating room.

Does walking make hip arthritis worse?

No, appropriate walking generally helps arthritic hips rather than harming them. Regular low-impact movement maintains muscle strength, keeps the joint mobile, and is associated with less pain over time, which is why every major guideline recommends staying active. The practical adjustments are dose and terrain: shorter, more frequent walks on even ground, comfortable footwear, and a cane or poles for longer distances. Sharp groin pain that escalates walk after walk warrants a plan review.

Will losing weight help my hip pain?

Usually, yes. Walking loads the hip at roughly two to three times body weight, so each pound lost is subtracted several times over on every step, thousands of times a day. Losing even five to ten percent of body weight has been linked to meaningful improvement in lower-limb arthritis pain and function. Because hip pain limits exercise, low-load options like swimming, cycling, and water walking are the most sustainable route, ideally alongside dietary guidance.

What happens if I wait too long for a hip replacement?

The joint won’t explode, but waiting has compounding costs. Progressive stiffness and pain lead to muscle wasting, a deepening limp, disrupted sleep, and extra strain on the other hip, knees, and lower back. People who arrive at surgery severely debilitated tend to start rehabilitation weaker and recover more slowly, sometimes with less complete results. Surgeons generally suggest reassessing when pain persists despite good nonsurgical care and interferes with walking, sleep, or daily tasks.

References

• NHS: Osteoarthritis
• MedlinePlus: Hip Replacement
• MedlinePlus: Osteoarthritis

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified doctor about your individual situation.