Life made easier: Joint replacement surgery can prolong career (MyWebTimes)
Minonk postman Charles Smith was in a lot of pain when he walked his mail routes. The bone and cartilage had worn down in his hips and there was bone-on-bone rubbing.
Then in 1996, the Long Point resident had his left hip replaced, and in 2000 he had his right one done. After that he was like a new man.
Smith was able to continue working and retire when he wants to, not because of the pain. He is retiring in September after waliking approximately 50,000 miles in 24 years of service.
The letter carrier had both hips replaced by Keith Rezin from Rezin Orthopedics in Morris. Before he had the surgeries Smith said he could hardly walk his 10-mile route.
“It was very sore and hurt a lot,” he said. “So I heard about Dr. Rezin through a mutual friend of mine and he said he really did good work. So I scheduled an appointment with him and he operated on me.”
After the surgeries Smith said he felt much better. After going through physical therapy he was able to get back to work full time within three months.
“I got back to work and I wondered why I took so long to have it done,” Smith said.
Now that he has had the surgeries he can support his family and enjoy other aspects of his life. He is able to bowl, golf and be with his friends — all pain free.
“It just goes to show, this is a gentleman who if he didn’t have his hips replaced he would never have been able to do that and he probably would have been wheelchair-bound if it was 50 years ago,” Rezin said. “With the advances we have in replacement surgery he has been able to maintain a high quality of life. And still is and has done really well with the prostheses that are 20 years old.”
“We have even better things today. I think it shows how joint replacement in this case hip replacement can change peoples lives.”
Rezin said Smith had osteoarthritis, which is wear and tear arthritis. While there are many different forms of arthritis, the No. 1 cause of joint replacement surgery is osteoarthritis. Rezin said he would bet around 90 to 95 percent of the surgeries are due to that type of arthritis.
“Essentially if we are talking about a hip replacement, the problem is that the ball of the femur, where it articulates with the socket is very arthritic, there is no more cartilage left,” Rezin said. “What we do when we do a hip replacement is chop off the ball and we are putting in a metal socket with a piece of plastic that goes inside of that. Then we put a stem that goes down into the femur bone or the thigh bone, and then it has a ball that articulates with the socket.”
The knee is very similar, he will take about a quarter of an inch off of the thigh bone and the shin bone. Many people think the doctor will remove the whole knee during the surgery, however that is not true. The doctor will just take out a little bit of bone, kind of resurfacing the knee Rezin said. Then the doctor will replace what was taken off with metal and a small piece of plastic that sticks in between.
Rezin said he can do the operation, be it a knee or a hip, in about an hour to an hour and a half. The same day as the surgery he will have his patients up and walking. They usually are admitted to the hospital at least overnight and most stay between one and two days.
Typically after those couple of days, Rezin hopes they can go home. Then they would start therapy, whether it be someone coming to the house or they would start outpatient therapy, which usually takes four to six weeks.
Rezin will normally see the patient two weeks after surgery to get their staples out for a quick check and then again six weeks after surgery at which time the patient gets an X-ray. Rezin said most people at that point are doing well enough to get back to their regular activities — if so he tells them he will see them at their one year mark. He believes the success rate in these operations probably is in the range of 97 to 98 percent.
“The vast majority of people do very very well,” Rezin said. “We have really decreased the two biggest risks, infection and blood clot. By doing the things that I do, we have really minimized that to the point that I haven’t have either one of those problems in over two years. Which, knock on wood, will hopefully continue. It has become, I think, a very safe straight forward almost routine operation.”
Rezin said the biggest change in replacement surgery has been the plastic the doctors use. Before, one of the biggest problems doctors had was the plastic in the prosthesis would wear out, causing the prosthesis to loosen.
About seven years ago doctors developed new techniques to make the plastic stronger and last twice as long. Previously, the plastic would last from seven to eight years, now it may last 12 years.
Smith told The Times, if it wasn’t for Rezin, he wouldn’t have a career or a life — that was how bad it had become for him.
“If someone’s considering doing hip surgery by all means (do it),” Smith said. “It will make your life easier and they can continue on.”
“There are so many people who have come in and they couldn’t walk before this,” Rezin said. “Then you give them a new hip or a new knee, and it can really change their life. It is a life-changing event.”