Thank you so much for joining us
here on Idaho today. You know,
many of us experience minor joint pain.
You know our knees or hips Creek and hurt,
but if it's uncomfortable to
do normal tasks like walking,
getting dressed or getting out of your car,
you may want to consider
new treatment options.
We visited Doctor Taylor Lara.
He's an orthopedic surgeon at
Saint Alphonsus to talk about
surgical and nonsurgical treatment.
For these aches and pains so you can
move easier and live your best life.
Doctor Laura, let's
talk about joint replacement.
O, who's a good candidate and what type
of conditions lead to joint replacement.
OK, the best candidates for joint
replacement and speaking specifically
of HIP and knee arthroplasty or total
joint replacement are patients that
have a severe arthritis of the hip or
the knee and patients that have severe
findings of this on X ray have pain
every day with every step and have pain.
Limit their activities of
healthful daily living.
They tend to do the best
with total joint replacements
and as we're seeing our population age,
are you seeing an increased need
for knee and hip replacements?
Absolutely, and that's mostly
the fact that we have an aging
population and a growing population,
and the number one risk factor for
developing osteoarthritis is age.
In addition to genetics.
Unfortunately, we also do have
an obesity problem and that can
compound both the symptoms and the
progression of osteoarthritis.
But we're definitely seeing increasing
demand and it's keeping us very busy.
And let's talk about technology too.
How has that impacted these
procedures and the improvements
that you've seen from it? Well,
one of the best innovations in
tolerant replacement that nobody
would argue with is that some of the
components are much more durable now.
This has been around for a while now,
but hips that were done 20
years ago or 30 years ago,
we were really worried about them wearing
out and they could lead to very complex
revision surgeries that have to be due.
It have to be done if the hip did wear out.
I think what's been the best innovations
recently is not necessarily very high tech,
but the way we take care of our patients.
In collaborating with other teams,
including her anesthesiologist,
our nursing and physical therapist at
the hospital and are used to what we
call a multimodal pain control regimen.
Using multiple different medications
and anesthetic strategies to reduce
postsurgical pain and avoiding
using opioid medications,
which we all know has some
negative side effects.
And that's allowed us to help people.
Over much faster,
important placement surgery and 80% of
our patients are going home the same day
as a result of that, really absolutely yeah.
And so how long would you say recovery
would be from knee to hip replacement?
Well, the the hip replacement
typically has more predictable
recovery and slightly faster recovery.
There's a wide range of normal for everyone.
I usually tell people expect to
be feeling better than before.
Surgery roughly 2 to six
weeks after hip replacement.
Usually you can usually safely bet on that,
and for near replacement
there's a higher variability.
I tell people to expect between 6
and 12 weeks after the surgery to be
feeling better than before surgery,
but still expect some pain,
some swelling for three to
six months after that surgery,
and with the advancements in
technology like you had mentioned,
the improvement with material should
people still plan on possibly
having a secondary replacement,
or is it likely that they won't need
one because things have improved?
People do will still need revision surgeries,
and we're seeing a growth of that,
but not for parts wearing out.
It's for other reasons,
you know, infection.
Is a concern fracturing around components,
developing instability
and problems like that.
Those can all require additional surgeries,
but surgeries for components wearing
out and the problems associated
with that are much much lower.
So about 1% of total joints of the
hip and knee get revised every year,
so it's a small number.
But when you add up the hundreds
of thousands of procedures
that are done every year,
we're seeing more and more of it,
but usually not for wearing out anymore.
If somebody has.
We are hip pain, just joint pain.
It should they go see their
provider or should they come
to a specialist like you.
I think either one is a good option.
Most primary care physicians are
really well trained in identifying,
diagnosing and starting the
initial nonoperative treatment
of hip and knee osteoarthritis.
Think it's really important to get a
plane X ray fancy scans like CT scans
and MRI's often don't give me the
kind of information that I want to get
that I get out of a nice plane X ray.
So that's always a great place to start.
You can rule out a lot of things
great, and surgery sometimes
isn't the answer right.
There's other preventative ways
to treat hip and knee pain or
just joint pain in general.
Absolutely, we have we like to refer
to as a ladder of therapy for a lot
of people that starts with using
non steroidal anti inflammatories
like ibuprofen or naproxen.
That's not safe for everybody to take so
it wouldn't make sure you haven't been
given medical advice not to take those,
but those are really good medications
for controlling pain keeping a good.
Activity level, weight bearing activity
is generally good for your joints.
Many people are concerned they'll
be doing damage to their joints
by keeping up that activity,
and I tell them for the most part
that's not going to be the case and it
actually can make the joints feel better.
We still do prescribe some physical
therapy in certain patients for,
especially if that mild hyperneat
arthritis and in some cases we'll
consider injections and bracing
or the use of gait aids if needed.
And all those are things that we
try before we try surgery too.
Already gave some great advice,
but people want to learn more about
options for them. What do they do?
We have a website that they can visit
and there's a lot of good information
and you can make an appointment with
us or we can help you get connected
with the primary care position.
Great thank you so much.
All right, thank you.