Be very vigilant and alert with your health if you have a metal on metal device. I had written before about my plight with a BioMet Magnum M2A that was put in me at 57, over 5 years ago.

I had a couple of years with some discomfort and was told more therapy! I kept trying to tell the doctors I was healthy as a horse prior to having this THR.

Three years ago it continued to get worse and walking through a grocery store even became a big problem. Then insomnia and panic attacks started and when they hit, I felt I couldn’t breath. It was almost terrifying because you couldn’t even lay down and sleep. Xanax helped. However the actual breathing started becoming a real problem. Then the hip actually dislocated on a few occasions and the pain was unbearable.

I now have three levels of hip pain. A level three where it feels swollen and a grease job would help. A level 5/6 where I am convinced the head is not 100% in the socket, it almost feels like it’s cutting me inside but I can limp around with a cane. Then 4 occasions of what I believe is total dislocation and it is nearly ambulance calling pain. However if I immediately sit and endure, with tears, it does seem to revert back into the socket. Sleeping on my right side with foam padding seems to push the device back together and the next day becomes a crap shoot.

The original surgeon abandon me when bone scan, x-ray and blood test did not indicate a problem.

A second Orthopedic surgeon decided it was muscle and ligament via MRI and I endured multiple injections in the hip. He gave up also. This was at a renowned Orthopedic Clinic in the Denver metro area!

In May 2012 I went to University Hospital and they wanted heart and pulmonary evaluation before committing to revision surgery. I was very angry as I just wanted the thing out of me. However they saved my life requiring those tests. The heart was enlarged on right side which pointed to lung issues. A CT Scan of the lungs showed I was full of blood clots. I was in critical care for a while until they could evaluate and get me on Heparin and Coumadin.

They think the blood clots started shortly after the original surgery as they appeared to be older. They kept insisting I had to have been in severe pain when these happened. That just never happened in the five years so they are just guessing when they occurred.

I now may be on Coumadin the rest of my life! Needless to say nobody will do anything until the clots recede or go away and that may mean years of Warfarin. I just hope and pray that this piece of crap BioMet isn’t destroying my right leg in the mean while.

So despite the information about MoM failures and the comment I had seen about health issues seemingly unrelated to your MoM device, make sure your doctor investigates all of your symptoms individually. I kept believing the breathing issues were because of the effort to just move my right leg to walk. I had my mind made up if I got a revision that everything else would magically go away!

With the FDA making a bad decision to allow these MoM devices in the first place and now giving no direction to recall or definitive direction to the medical community, you are essentially on your own to find a surgeon that will clean up the mess. I can’t blame any of them when a potential lawsuit looms that may drag them in. Bottom line: I’m grateful to be alive, but life ain’t a bowel of cherries!

Terry in Colorado

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