Avascular Necrosis in young Male

[ppalm10]

Hi, I am a 22 year old male and doctors have just discovered that I have Avascular Necrosis in the femoral head of my hip. Some doctors have already told me that I need a hip replacement in the near future. They dont know what has caused this injury in such a young person, but I am putting it down to playing AFL. I am not willing to have a hip replacement at this age as a lot of doctors are ready to book me in for the OP, however I am looking for different avenues to heal my hip. A specialist in Brisbane is planning to drill through my hip and inject cortisone in an attempt to salvage the damage sustained in my hip. Does anyone know of any orthopods that are doing cutting edge research, or well known Doctors with great reputations that deal with these sorts of sporting hip related injuries. Thankyou for your time in reading this.

[injuryupdate]

This is a pretty sad diagnosis although it is not unheard of. Bo Jackson (a legendary US baseballer and footballer) suffered avascular necrosis in his 20s. He returned to Major League Baseball after a hip replacement.

Nevertheless I would advise avoiding surgery as long as possible. When you do have a hip replacement it will improve your quality of life a lot, but best to leave it as late as possible so you need as few revisions as possible in your lifetime.

[djmitchell]

The so called cutting edge is either removing your fibula, drilling the femur, placing the fibula and bone graft up the femoral neck, then reconnecting the blood vessels to local arteries. It depends on how advanced your problem is.Once collapse of the head has occurred results are less good, if no collapse has occurred, it may not be necessary!

Resurfacing arthroplasty is a viable option, again depending on situation.

Sometimes just drilling the lesion makes most sense as it has little morbidity, fast recovery, no donor site morbidity, and often works if the disease hasn't progressed much.