My experience with Legg Perthese

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I was twelve years old when I was diagnosed with Legg Perthese. This left me be ridden for 3 months with a full body cast from my feet to my chest. My mother had to fly me to California to see Doctor Wenger, (a specialist in orthopedic surgery). He was the only doctor who felt confident in releasing the constant pain from my hip and delay arthritis in my hip until I hit my 30's or 40's. That is when I will need a full hip replacement. The reason that my case was so rare was because of the age I was and the amount of the femur that was affected. Legg Perthese is diagnose when a kid usually 4-12 years old loses blood supply to the top of the femur. The femur is the top of upper leg bone. When the femur loses blood supply it begins to become soft. This is when the bone starts to deform. Once the bone realizes that it is deforming it then starts to heal itself. In my case it healed itself larger then the socket. So if you were to look at my xrays you would see a larger femur that looks deformed slipping out of the socket. Dr. Wenger had to shave my femur to look like a normal enlarged femur. Then he had to break my soket open in order for the new enlarged femur to fit into the socket. He took bone from the upper hip and added it to the outer socket making a secure socket that would support my hip. This process was excrutiatingly painful and I am thaknful that I wasnt made aware of exactly how excrutiatingly painful it was really going to be. I was in the hospital for two weeks and for a week and a half never stopped hitting my morphine button. Then I started scratching my skin off from reaction to the morphine and the nurses put some other medication to make me stop intching. This had a reaction to the morphine and almost put me into a coma. Thank god my parents were there to grab someone before that happend. I was 13 at the time and had to teach myself school work since I was bed ritten for 4 months. I walked on crutches for the next two months.



Tags:	Legg-Perthese, Bones, Femur

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Gmoney

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