(WHAS11) - A local doctor is practicing a new innovative hip replacement surgery.
He calls it the closest thing to outpatient joint replacement surgery because patients only spend a night in the hospital and are on their feet just hours after surgery.
WHAS11’s Adrianna Hopkins talked to one patient who said after spending the last decade in constant pain, this has transformed her life.
For Karen Hart, even the simplest things like walking her dog or walking downstairs to her basement workshop used to be excruciatingly painful.
"I just was always in pain. If your hips in pain, it's kind of like your hand being in pain. You know every move you make; you can't make any move without having some sort of pain. And it was just chronic," says Karen Hart.
It was a major hindrance considering her passion is making copper metal garden sprinklers, which requires her to spend a lot of time squatting down and on her feet. She suffered from osteoarthritis in her hips and it affected her knee too and medication didn't help.
"I couldn't sleep. It was horrible. It's been going on for 10 or 12 years but that last year just got to be really bad," she says. It got to the point where life could hardly be enjoyed.
As a last resort, she contacted Dr. Cyna Khalily, an orthopedic surgeon, to have her hip replaced.
Khalily uses a new innovative hip replacement technique. It's the same concept as before - remove the arthritic socket and replace it - but The Wright Path Surgical Technique is much less invasive.
With this technique, the surgeon doesn't cut through as much muscle, and the implants, which used to be one size fits all, are now customizable. The metal hip lasts longer, is more stable and feels more natural than what doctors previously used.
"The advantage of that is patients are up on their feet and out of the hospital much quicker. This is as close as we've come to outpatient joint replacement surgery," says Dr. Cyna Khalily. Karen had the surgery earlier this year and she says that four weeks out she could have jumped on a trampoline and at three weeks, she could do squats.
According to Karen, just a few hours after surgery, she was out of bed and on her feet. "I have an incision like that long at my panty line and after that there's a pinpoint,” says Karen. Khalily says this is drastically different than before.
"Folks were in the hospital for a week, on a walker for months, maybe not even putting all of their weight on their leg. Now some patients come in and they're carrying their cane,” says Dr. Khalily. Karen says now's she's "strutting'" with her new hip and that this new style of surgery is a lifesaver.
Doctor Khalily says hip replacement surgery used to be reserved for older people, but now young people are candidates because the new implant lasts longer and the recovery time is much shorter.
