What is bilateral hip replacement?

My name is Ryan Bauman and I'm a hip and knee surgeon here at Miami Valley Hospital.  I specialize in hip and knee replacement surgery as well as minimally invasive approaches.

What is bilateral hip replacement?  That's where you actually go and have both of your hips replaced at the same time. This is not done very often, however, in patients that have severe arthritis in both of their hips that's disabling them to such an extent that getting just one done first wouldn't be helpful. This is a reasonable alternative in younger, healthier patients that are able to tolerate twice as much surgery at once.

The patient that would be someone that would be ideal for having both hips replaced at the same time is someone that's younger than age 70, doesn't have any heart or lung problems, and has disabling arthritis in both hips. It, you don't want to replace a hip that only has mild arthritis just because you want to get both of them done at the same time.  You want to make sure that your arthritis is bad. But in someone that has terrible arthritis in both hips, getting one hip done frequently makes the recovery harder, because they're relying on their arthritic other hip for getting around.

Recovery from bilateral hip replacement is definitely harder. That's why you want to make sure that if you're having both of them done at the same time, that you have the adequate strength and the health status be able to tolerate it. But since we're able to do the bilateral hip replacements with the anterior approach, we find that the hospital length of stay is similar to a traditional hip replacement -- meaning two to three days in the hospital.

They're certainly some obvious clear benefits to being able to have both of your hips done at the same time: one hospital stay, one surgery, one time off from work.  Traditionally if you have one hip done you tend to take about six weeks off from work and most patients that have been getting bilateral hips done have really only been taking about two months off, so you're saving some time off from work. And for some patients it's as simple as being able to get it all done with, to get it all over with at once.

Most folks who get both their hips done stay two or three days in the hospital. For us the most important thing is making sure your pain is under control and that you're able to get around with either  a walker or crutches safely before going home. Once all your pain’s under control and you're able to walk, you can go home any time.

The reason you would want to get this procedure done at Miami Valley, or Miami Valley South, is that we have the whole team that's able to get you through the surgery. With something as big as bilateral hip replacement, you want to make sure that you've got a pain service that can help because you're really going through twice as much surgery.  We've got a dedicated floor for hip and knee replacement as well as nurses that are very familiar with joint replacement surgery.