What is hip replacement surgery?

When folks say what really is hip replacement surgery, what we do in hip replacement surgery is we remove the arthritic cartilage.  So the ball of the ball and socket joint is removed, any remaining cartilage on the socket side is grinded out such as we get down to good healthy bone, and we put a socket that is made of titanium or stainless steel into the socket.  And then there’s a plastic liner that that snaps into it.

On the thigh bone or femur bone side there’s a spike that’s planted into the bone that the bone grows into, and then there’s a ceramic or metal ball that’s placed on it, and then it’s reduced back in.  The reason this works is there are no nerve endings in metal or plastic such that previously where the patient had bone with exposed nerve endings much like a cavity in your mouth, once you cap that area of bone with metal and plastic, those nerve endings aren’t being irritated.