Are you disappointed at the response you received from the legal people? They appear deliberately obtuse, and my guess is justifiably so (no pun intended). Don’t give up the fight, man! Even if I got not one dime I would find satisfaction in the accelerating the end of this sordid implant enterprise.

We are where we are, brother, and my position is everyone should know what is happening — end of story. This is certifiably egregious bullshit, Mark, and irrespective of who gets what from whom I will not go quietly. I don’t expect any of the coming months to be quiet ones concerning such devices we are just now beginning to see the consequences of.

Stay positive and hang tough, Mark (yeah, hard for me to say) — we will all get through this in our own way.

Send him an email and ask him if you can set a time to talk to him. He will respond as soon as he can, and will speak candidly about your plight and what you (we) are up against.

Good Luck!

I would recommend you send an email to Ben, because his contingency fee is only 33 & 1/3% if settled and 40% only if it drags on into litigation. Anybody who wants to charge 40% for a settlement is padding their take in the deal, as that extra 7 & 2/3% amounts to quite a bit of money and allows for the firm who found you to be compensated.

Send an email to Ben Gordon to find out for yourself, and/or at least do it before you sign anything the deprives you of money upon settlement of your case, and precludes direct service and communication from the firm who is actually on top of and working your case.

Hang tough man. I say this to myself as much as i do you, as my April 20012 revision of a BHR product is becoming more painful every day and an MRI last week that showed ‘fluid’ around the implant again. I will have it aspirated early next month to determine if it is an infection or a pseudotumor/AVAL, either one of which might lead to my third revision of this hip in three years, and two revisions of that same hip in less than six months. What planet have we landed on, man? And yeah, how much is one body supposed to take? I can tell you this, It is very much a relief to have legal representation now, and my only only focus is on healing now.

I will never, ever give up in my duel with S$N (oops), and still strongly believe ‘the truth will out’ and we ‘the poisoned’ will yet see justice done. That’s why I come here, to help others and receive the assistance I myself need to keep fighting this horrible dream I am seemingly unable to awaken from.

Good Luck Mark!

PS — Ask to keep anything they remove from your body in writing, sent by letter or handed to both your surgeon and the hospital’s patient advocate or ombudsman, etc. The property is yours to keep, and don’t let them scare you by telling you you shouldn’t take it home because it’s a bio-hazard. I have three failed prosthetic implants here at home, and I — and members of my family and even some friends have handled them many times with no ill effect. They are sterilized after passing through the hospital’s autoclave, so for example even though their are bits of necrotic tissue visible underneath the hollow underside of my femoral ball, they are no longer a hazard. Any good law firm will tell you to ask for your failed implant in advance of any pending revision, as they would prefer to see an independent analysis of wear and abrading as opposed to any tests that might be performed by S&N. I can see with my naked eye where the metal ions ‘wore off’ through movement (‘articulation’ to the orthopods) on my device. The entire femoral head was filled with a hideous yellowish, dead mass of flesh, and had the color of ink on the side that was against the MoM device (So say my hospital records, which you should also get a copy of ASAP)

Lee:

You wrote:
“My original surgeon suggested a revision asap, and on the whole has been co-operative.
However, he seems to have adopted the line that the hip didn’t fail because it hadn’t moved or misaligned, and when he removed it it popped out without any great need to hammer away at it (hip surgery is a brutal exercise).
My concern with this attitude, which seems to prevail amongst the medical fraternity, is that it mitigates against the device being recalled. What they should be doing is supporting their patients to instigate a class action against Smith and Nephew who have clearly developed and foisted upon an unsuspecting public, a device that has indeed failed. For it to disintegrate within our bodies, depositing carcinogenic metals that slowly poison us, is a very clear failure”

That is the most succinct description of our S&N nightmares I’ve yet read. My surgeon behave in exactly the same way, and where I first felt him genuine in his care and concern, and the careful revision (he charged me for again), I find him today totally disingenuous, and he DOES NOT TELL ME EXACTLY WHAT HE KNOWS. I can’t look at the man anymore, as I have now seen his records of our last meeting, where he explains “Patient thought implant loose, Xray verifies device positioned perfectly, no anomalies visible”. “Explained with the extent of tissue damage he incurred (like what, I caused it?), patient should expect a long recovery”. (So, what, ‘patient, be patient’)? He has said nothing of my tissue damage being ‘extensive’ in any way. I was told I had a few small pseudotumors (Mark, you may have a few in there, as most S&N Metal (MoM) people do).

This is a prominent research and teaching hospital up here that put this in me and they have now quite clearly moved into ‘ass-covering’ mode! Period. The man has now demonstrated lucidly enough who it is he sides with in this looming battle, the legal conflict that S&N see ahead.

And that segues nicely into the legal realm; yes, their is legal ‘action’ against S&N in the States, and many lawyers here are just now taking cases against this recalcitrant behemoth of a company. It’s all in the money for these heartless bastards, and when they see the full extent of their ‘exposure’ to the many metalosis cases that stand before them, they will recall the damn thing (Out damn thing)!
It just reaches a tipping point, on their balance sheet. “Do we cut our losses now and recall, or do we continue to stall, while watching our liability for more and more metalosis cases continue to increase”? It’s going to tip soon, Lee, and they’ll recall their toxic toy. Their now appears a ‘chink’ in their well-fabricated armor, soon to be torn asunder.

Hang tough, hip brothers and sisters.

The Truth Will Out!

this is not normal – there are many others with the same problem.

You will need to have the S&N hip replaced pronto or your health will go downhill and you will sustain real damage to the bone and tissue.

You need to get a date scheduled for a revision ASAP – I got a Zimmer ceramic on ceramic second time around and it has been great.

Earl