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 PEORIA, Ariz. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Conditions like arthritis force close to 200,000 people to get a hip replacement every year. The surgery typically means significant pain and down time, but now there's a new option that uses a table to get people back on their feet faster.
For Kris Irizarry, life with degenerative arthritis meant no more high heels and a lot more pain.
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"I had really no movement -- no external rotation in my right hip at all, so every time I moved, it really felt like bone crunching on bone," Irizarry recalled to Ivanhoe. "It was horrible."
David Ott, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in
 Phoenix told Irizarry she was a good candidate for a new kind of hip replacement using this unique table.
"We're trying to do a hip replacement without damaging any muscle," Dr. Ott explained.
"The best way to do that is from the front side of the hip."
The table allows the surgeon to drop the leg and move and rotate it for better access to the hip.
"What that does is take the bone, which normally we can't get to [and] it opens it up like so we have access to the bone," Dr, Ott said.
In surgery, that access means the artificial hip can be placed without cutting the muscle that helps control the leg and hip. Dr. Ott says early studies show this new approach means less damage to tissue, less pain, fewer complications and a much quicker recovery.
"I was back at the gym in a week, driving in a week, back at work in two-and-a-half weeks," Irizarry said.
 Now, more than two months after her total hip replacement, she is back on track.
"It's just a pain-free life, which is worth so much," Irizarry said.
The new technique reduces the incision length from 10 to 12 inches to four or five inches. It also reduces the length of hospital stays by days and recovery time by months.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, Public Relations
(602) 239-4411
http://www.bannerhealth.com
http://www.mizuhosi.com/profx.cfm
To read Ivanhoe's full-length interview with Dr. Ott, click here.
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If this story or any other Ivanhoe story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Lindsay Braun at lbraun@ivanhoe.com.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
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