Results not typical and may vary by individual. Not all patients will reach the same activity level.
Carl J. Savino, Jr. (Hip)
Trident® Hips “A Gift” Worth Waiting For
Carl J. Savino, Jr., loves a story with a happy ending. After 30 years of living with a painful circulatory disease, which had deteriorated the top of his left femur — and had eventually broken down his right hip — the 52-year-old feels like a little boy who finally got the bicycle he hoped to find under the Christmas tree. And the best part is he can ride it, too.
For years, Carl’s doctors encouraged him to put off surgery. Resigned from age 22 to a life of limited activity — no running, jogging, playing tennis, or golfing — he settled on taking increasing doses of Motrin to combat pain and arthritis. As his condition worsened, the Pennsylvania-based funeral director began asking for backup whenever jobs required lifting, carrying, and walking up and down stairs. The pain had permeated all areas of his life.
Now, after having both hips replaced with Trident® ceramic cups and titanium stems in a single operation, Carl focuses more on what’s possible than on what’s prohibited. “It’s such a thrill to walk without any pain,” says Carl. “It’s almost too good to be true. I hope this ‘bike’ I’ve been given never disappears or gets taken away. That’s how I feel about my hips. I never thought I’d feel this well. It’s a miracle — just a great, great thing.”
Christine Bartholomew (Hip)
Thirty-Nine and Feeling Fine — Thanks to Trident® Hip
At 38, Christine Bartholomew, RN, was shocked to discover the sharp pain in her hip was the onset of arthritis. Considered young for hip replacement surgery, she endured a year of progressive pain, finding it increasingly difficult to stand, walk long distances, take care of three children, or hobble through 12-hour hospital shifts. When her patients started telling her she looked like she was in more pain than they were, she knew it was time for orthopaedic intervention.
Ever since her surgeon removed a painful cyst that had developed under diseased cartilage and implanted a ceramic-on-ceramic Trident® hip with a titanium stem, Christine has been “ecstatic.” “When I found out Stryker had come out with a ceramic hip, it motivated me to do the research and have the surgery right away,” says Christine. Now pain-free, she’s glad she did.
Encouraged by the potential durability of the Trident® hip for younger, more active patients, she feels great “peace of mind” for the future. “The door that closed — because I was worried about losing my job, becoming homebound, going on disability and parking in handicapped spaces for the rest of my life — suddenly opened,” says Christine. “Now I can vacation with my family, walk up and down my steps, and work without worrying”.
She adds, “I didn’t think I would ever have a normal life again. And now I do. I am very grateful to Stryker Orthopaedics for giving me my life back.”
Jason Baker (Hip)
Trident® Hip Fits “Type-A” Lifestyle Perfectly
When Jason Baker’s orthopaedic surgeon showed him X-rays of his 30-year-old, bone-on-bone joints, he asked, “Where did you get these hips from?” For Jason, the more important question was “How soon can I get them fixed?”
For years, the “Type A” athlete and corporate recruiter had been feeling progressively intense hip and rear muscle pain, which had thrown doctors off track because it seemed to emanate from his groin. Finally diagnosed with genetic osteoarthritis, he was determined to correct the problem and get on with life.
Referred to a surgeon who was involved in trials for Stryker’s Trident® ceramic-on-ceramic hip, he scheduled surgery during a break between jobs in November 2002. Within a week of replacing the worse right hip, he was walking without pain. A month later, he walked close to 70 blocks in New York City, drove back to Pennsylvania, and got out of the car unhampered by the old, dreaded pain and numbness.
Outside of initial surgical soreness and stiffness, he continues to recover better than expected. With the benefit of uninterrupted, pain-free sleep, he is back to enjoying all his favorite sports and weekend activities. Recently married, he is also looking forward to playing with his kids someday.
“A lot of people told me I was crazy to have the surgery at such a young age,” says Jason. “The lesson I learned is I’m not willing to give up my way of life because of something like this. The fact that I had the surgery at 30, and now my life is back to normal, should indicate why people should do it. I couldn’t be happier!”
Kelly Dyer (Hip)
Trident® Hip Transforms Pain into Gain for Former Pro Hockey Player
“It’s tough to sell when you’re in pain,” says Kelly Dyer. The more the femoral head in her right hip deteriorated, the harder it was for the former Women’s Team USA Ice Hockey player to get excited about the line of sticks and equipment she sells for TPS Louisville Hockey. “All I could think was ‘I can’t wait to get home and get some ice on this hip,’ ” says Kelly. “It really started to bother me.”
Working trade shows was torture. Even getting in and out of her car after long trips required letting her leg hang out the door for awhile before she could put pressure on it. Worn out by the end of the day, her social life suffered, too. No longer able to take long walks or bicycle rides, she tried to keep active with occasional, moderate sailing and kayaking. When offered Boston Bruins game tickets, the longtime fan and one-time Olympic hockey advisor would think, “Stairs … parking lot … no, thanks.”
After trying medication, physical therapy, lifestyle changes, and several preliminary surgeries, the 38-year-old athlete was convinced replacing her failing hip was the only way to get back to actively living. Her surgeon recommended the Stryker Orthopaedics ceramic-on-ceramic Trident® hip with a titanium stem for its potential longevity and active wear benefits.
Recovering from surgery at New England Baptist Hospital, she was excited to find herself “not complaining about my hip at all.” She looks forward to easing back into her favorite, least aggressive sports, possibly sailing and getting back to coaching this summer at her women’s hockey school. For Kelly, the transformation has been “pretty amazing.”
Neva Moten (Hip)
Not Ready for Nursing Home, Aerobic Walker is Agile Again
An aerobic walker for many years, Neva Moten, 65, felt like she’d stepped in a hole one day and never got out. Over two years, her condition worsened to the point where she couldn’t put on a sock or tie her shoe. Unable to turn over in bed, she couldn’t sleep at night. And once she crept downstairs in the morning she did her best to stay there until bedtime.
After trying sports medicine, rehabilitation, and a host of medications, she made her way to an orthopaedic surgeon. He explained how the cup in her once-damaged, and now arthritic, hip had worn, making one leg shorter than the other. With a 20% contracture, she was perpetually bent. “If I straightened my spine, my leg came up at the hip and knee and bent like a stork,” says Neva. “And if I stood up on that leg, I bent forward at the hip and couldn’t stand up straight.”
Now, after Trident® ceramic hip replacement surgery, she can not only stand up straight, she can stretch out flat in bed, enjoy water aerobics, practice yoga, and walk several miles a day. “My friends just can’t believe it,” says Neva. “Before, I was ready for the nursing home. Now I can walk, I can stand straight, and I can smile — hip, hip hooray!”
Paul Noone (Hip)
With Trident® Hip, Active Dad Gets Back to Basics
For Paul Noone, 42, being a dad is more than a spectator sport. As the devastating pain in his hip made it increasingly difficult to play with his two sons, eight and six, and caddy golf tournaments for his 10-year-old daughter, he was anxious to set it right.
Avascular necrosis in his right hip had cut off the blood supply to Paul’s femur, causing the bone to die where it meets the pelvis. Paul’s doctor compared his collapsed femoral head to a broken ping-pong ball with jagged edges. Over an 18-month period — while he interviewed surgeons to get to the root of his originally misdiagnosed condition — he lived with intense pain, which made it difficult to walk, sleep, golf, or play with his kids.
Research led him to a surgeon involved in the Stryker Orthopaedics Trident® hip trials, whose volume, outcomes, and access to technology inspired him to schedule the first available date. Within days of receiving a ceramic-on-ceramic Trident® ball and acetabulum, he slept through the night for the first time in months. Soon, he hopes to resume his golf schedule, which had gone from 63 rounds a year to less than four. And, he looks forward to keeping up with his kids again.
“I can’t imagine what it was like before they had surgery like this,” says Paul. “Living with constant pain just breaks you down. I’m always telling people how grateful I am.”
Rich Haydinger (Hip)
Trident® Hip Recipient Limps No More
Rich Haydinger used to think a serious hip problem would show on the outside. So he lived with pain and limited mobility in his right hip until friends with experience told him he’d feel it “on the inside.” Still, he waited until he couldn’t stand it anymore to schedule the hip replacement he knew was inevitable.
“I would have to bend over so far I’d get abdominal cramps because I couldn’t lift my leg up and cross it to put socks on,” says Rich. “And I started wearing loafers all the time so I didn’t have to tie shoes. Remember Chester from ‘Gunsmoke?’ He’d drag a leg and say, ‘Wait for me, Marshall Dillon.’ That’s what I felt like.”
At 61, he learned an old football injury was the root of his calcium deposits, arthritis, and bone chips. After receiving a Trident® hip with a titanium stem from “the best surgeon [he] could find,” Rich put his faith in his orthopaedic team — doctors, nurses, physical therapists — and his own hard work to regain basic function. Now, after religiously following his physical therapy program, he doesn’t need regular doses of Motrin to get through his day anymore. He can easily put his socks on, walk up stairs, and drive his car to oversee the apartment buildings he owns, manages, builds, and rehabs with his three sons. With no more pain and all gain, he’s moving on.
Richard Sloan (Hip)
“We Got Our Lives Together Back” — Active Couple Appreciates Trident® Hips
Old age, extra weight, arthritis — for years, 52-year-old Richard Sloan attributed the pain, tightness, and limited movement in his hips to anything that didn’t require total hip surgery. “The idea of total hip surgery was horrifying,” says Richard. “I thought, ‘That’s a big deal. That only happens to really old people.’ ”
So, while his wife, Kathy, an orthopaedic operating room nurse, rallied for hip replacement, Richard tried everything else to postpone the inevitable. He exercised through the pain, hid how much it hurt to hike, took three or four aspirins a day, and used burning analgesics to mask the “shards of glass” shooting through his joints. Rooster comb and cortisone injections offered only short-term relief.
Then, he read an article in USA Today about young people benefiting from the long-term potential of ceramics. “That’s what I wanted to hear,” says Richard. Two Trident® hip replacement surgeries later, Richard, a freelance writer and long-time “newspaper guy” wishes every hip pain sufferer knew what he knows now. “My wife and I can go dancing, walking, and traveling again,” says Richard. “I’m feeling just incredible.”
He mentioned his hips in a local newspaper article and will approach other publications, too. Kathy hopes spouses will take notice. “Patients aren’t the only ones affected,” she says. “While Richard was dealing with his hips, our lives together were basically taken away. When he got his total hips, he didn’t just get his life back, we got our lives back. We’re having so much fun. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.”
Robin Chapman (Hip)
Journalist/Author Regains Youth, Credits Trident® Hips
A former television anchor and most recently the author of two popular Florida travel books, Robin Chapman, 53, is used to making appearances. For five years she gritted her teeth and appeared to be okay. But by the time she was diagnosed with advanced avascular necrosis, which had restricted the blood flow to her hips and severely deteriorated her joints, her surgeon couldn’t believe she was even walking at all.
As it became increasingly difficult to get in and out of cars, sit through plane trips, ride her bicycle, go to the gym, sleep, or even walk across a room, Robin went from public personality to private pain sufferer. Now, after bilateral Trident® hip replacements, she’s pain-free and back to her energetic, social self. “This surgery,” says Robin, “has given me back my life.”
“They say this is an elective procedure,” reflects Robin, “In my case I don’t think it was. For somebody like me who has led such an active life, it was a devastating picture of the future. It’s tough to write travel books and make public appearances if you’re in too much pain to leave your house.”
Now, Robin feels she can do anything, even return to daily journalism if she’d like to, where she’d be chasing stories and rushing in and out of “live” trucks. Supported by ceramic-on-ceramic joints her surgeon calls “as beautiful as a German sports car,” she’s regaining lost time. “And now if you average the age of all my body parts,” she says, “I am actually younger than I was before!”
John Tilling (Hip) — Not Ceramic Hip
Exeter® Total Hip Proves Excellent Choice for Active Orthopaedic Industry Consultant
According to orthopaedic consultant and sales education instructor John Tilling, his symptoms were “textbook” osteoarthritis. Hours spent on squash, racquetball, and tennis courts had contributed to the gradual deterioration of his hip joint surfaces. After enduring 10 years of progressive pain and increasingly limited movement, he took the advice of the orthopaedic surgeons he works with and agreed it was time to “get that hip fixed.”
When it came to choosing a surgeon, hospital, and hip system, he was in familiar territory. As a former Stryker sales rep, he had worked with the surgeon who designed the Exeter® hip system. Over the years, he had been involved in Exeter® workshops, observed Exeter® surgeries, listened to papers, and reviewed clinical results. However, even though he had a lot of confidence in the system, he knew it was most important to find the best and most experienced surgeon and let him recommend the implant.
His search took him back to the United Kingdom and the hospital in the city of Exeter® where it all began in 1968. Three years after receiving a hybrid Stryker Orthopaedics total hip device, consisting of an Exeter® hip stem and an ABG®* pressfit titanium cup, this 67-year-old is making the most of his newfound mobility and has resumed his life.
His left hip will most likely need replacing in the not-too-distant future. He is confident the results will be more of the same.
*ABG® is not available in US.
Dan Skoglund (Hip)
The Fun is Back for Trident® Hip Recipient
Dan Skoglund could handle putting his own life on hold, but his four-year-old daughter couldn’t wait. “My situation is severe degenerative osteoarthritis, and it’s idiopathic. That’s the medical term for they don’t know. It started about 14 years ago. I was about 31 years old, and I had very, very sharp pain walking around.”
Over nine years of living with painful, bone-on-bone osteoarthritis in his hips, he had given up all the activities he loved — football, basketball, volleyball, running, bicycling, downhill and water skiing. “My life got progressively less active, less fun, and less participative.”
He didn’t want to miss his daughter’s childhood, too. When he went to the doctor’s office, he knew his problem was a major one. “I’ll never forget laying down in the X-ray room and hearing the radiologist who had taken the X-ray go, “Oh, my God.”
Faced with so many things he couldn’t do, Dan took charge to regain control of his life. He met with surgeons and conducted extensive Internet research. After pouring through FDA clinical trial data and research reports regarding the revolutionary new Stryker Orthopaedics Trident® Ceramic Acetabular System, he tracked down a lead clinical trial surgeon and scheduled surgery.
Since then, he has been living his life in twos. Over two weeks, he had two hip surgeries. Two weeks later, he was walking without crutches. In another two months he was walking as a morning workout. And now, he can take his daughter and her mom ice-skating and biking without painful repercussions.
“It’s great to get my life back again,” says Dan. “I keep reading all these stories of post-operation ‘hippies,’ as we call ourselves, and it seems to be a common thread — you get your life back.”
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