Yeah, I have this sneaking suspicion that because he’s always done it this way and it seems to be working well for him (he gets phenomenally positive reviews, both on line and from a couple of people I’ve spoken with who have used him for their hip replacements) he figures why bother to change. And maybe those are good reasons for HIM to keep doing posterior surgeries.
From what I read on line, the local MDs who do anterior approach have very long waiting lists, so it seems to be much in demand.
Our modern era has lots of info available to patients. Decent bet collective patient preference for [whatever] can shift faster than the medical establishment in general, or any given provider in specific, can shift provision to meet that demand.
It’s good that nowadays patients have access to lots of info. As long as it’s good info of course. e.g. one can quickly google up a library’s-worth of anti-vax nonsense. That’s bad.
Note I’m not suggesting the knee replacement anterior / posterior choice is based on bogus info. I know I don’t know and am happy to take everyone here’s word for it. My main point is that if anterior is actually superior for almost all cases, we’ll all learn about it faster than the medical establishment can switch to providing it for almost all cases.
UPDATE: Surgery scheduled for Aug 21, with a surgeon who does anterior approach using the Hana split table. According to the documents the hospital (UCDMC) handed me, they give you a walker at the door and you walk out under your own power, usually the same day. Wow.
In retrospect, I should have had this done about a year ago. Since I started noticing things going downhill in Jan, my hip has been getting worse fast. I’ll be glad when it’s over.
My wife is currently two weeks of recuperating from a repair of a repair of her right hip. Crutches and hip brace six weeks.
She has a hypermobility condition, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, so she’s had many other joint surgeries… TMJ, C spine, shoulder, both hips before, ankle …
The repair had been fine until she was T boned in a car accident last year. Tore the repaired labrum.
Not sure why the surgeon, who just does hips, advised a re repair over replacement, and repair of a repair is a bigger deal than repair, but he was firm that it was the way to go. Cadaver labrum, shaping things up, removing bone spurs, capsule plication…