Surgery for Osteoarthritis

Surgery for Osteoarthritis: A Final Option

Worst-case scenario is that your doctor will recommend surgery. If your joint is beyond repair or less severe treatment, he or she may need to remove the stray bits of cartilage or bone spurs that are affecting your joints and causing the inflammation and tenderness.

If the situation requires more than removal of cartilage, the doctor may want to restructure your injured bones or implement an artificial joint in place of your damaged one. This, as you can imagine is a pretty radical procedure and is not for everybody.

While surgery can sometimes improve the lives of many who have it, the dangers of it do not make it a first option. You may even be able to escape with a less invasive surgery option such as Arthroscopic surgery. Here, the surgeon simply makes a few small incisions and cleans the cartilage out of the joint or repairs existing damaged bones. No matter what, before surgery, try a liquid glucosamine product first. Such products have saved many arthritic joints from surgery.

Joint replacements are unfortunately the last option for the few who either have had their joints destroyed through injury or extremely advanced osteoarthritis. These surgeries are expensive, running $40,000 or more. While they generally will result in decreased joint pain, they are never permanent solutions. Replacement joints themselves must be replaced over time, generally a few years. This means more surgeries and additional costs. This is not as much of a problem these days, but the body may reject the implant, or fail to grow around it properly.

When you have surgery for osteoarthritis, and they replace your joint, it will never be as strong as your original joint. In hip replacements in particular, if you re-injure a replacement joint, you may simply not have enough material left to replace the joint as many joint replacements actually remove the ball from the ball and socket joint. This could lead to a crippling or complete loss of mobility. Your best bet to help stave off expensive and risky joint replacement is to focus on prevention. A little bit of glucosamine can go a long way towards keeping your joints strong and healthy.

Finally, make sure that whenever you’re discussing a treatment plan with your physician, you ask about options for depression. Many arthritic sufferers find themselves feeling helpless because of the life-altering effects the disease has on them.

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