At the young age of 17 most of us like to enjoy our teenage years by hanging out with friends and living life to the fullest. However, that was not the case for our young Siddhi Shelar. At 16 she was diagnosed with blood cancer. Over the next few years she underwent a series of chemo and other therapy to treat her cancer. A fight with a will to survive Siddhi was completely cured of cancer in 3 years. However, little did she knows the tool this treatment would take her.
One day on her way to college siddhi felt a sudden pain in her hip joint and had difficulty lifting her leg. Fearing for the worse they consulted their oncologist who assured that this was more of an orthopaedic problem than cancer. Orthopaedic from a government hospital, diagnosed her with avascular necrosis (AVN) of the Hip joint. AVN is known to occur in patients who have used steroids before. Steroids was a part of Siddhi’s treatment protocol.
Over the course of few months Siddhi’s AVN had reached a stage where she could not walk and hip joint replacement was the only option. However, given her young age and past medical history and considering her future married life most orthopaedics advised her to wait for 5-10 years before she can go for surgery. This is when they came to know about Dr. Shailendra Patil who has helped young patients with AVN to walk and live their life like before.
Initially Dr. Patil tried to treat her condition with medication but that did not show any results. That’s when he suggested her to undergo hip replacement. Given her young age Dr. patil has to make sure the implant he uses does not affect her future social & marital life. For example, a conventional hip implant causes ionisation with the body. This can lead to complications in future pregnancy. Also, these implants last for about 15–20 years so she will have to undergo revision THR at the age of 40-50 yrs.
Looking into all these factors Dr. Patil suggested Anatomical hip replacement which lasts 3-4 times Longer than a conventional hip implant; he uses a ceramic cup and liner so there is not metal ionisation in the body. At the same time, it offers more stability and mobility to the patient.
After the Anatomical hip surgery under Dr. Shailendra Patil, Siddhi is again able to do all the things she always wanted to. Just 1 year after the surgery is has gone trekked & rappelling and today she is able to go to work in Mumbai local train without any problem. She thanks Dr. Patil who saved her 10 years of pain and anguish.
