My wife is 44. To make a very long story at least moderately short, after months of hip pain, we went to an emergency room and after X rays they determined that the "ball" part of her hip was almost gone, and she needed hip replacement. We had no insurance, so they basically gave her pain meds and wished us luck. We applied and got shared cost medicaid, which is nearly useless since no one seems to take it. At any rate, after a few months the pain got way worse, we returned to the ER and they admitted her. They said this time that there was more than just a hip replacement here, that she had an infection in the hip that they did not feel qualified to explore.

We are now at a more full service hospital. The first ortho doctor said, "there's no infection, you'll be going home soon. Obviously he wasn't interested in doing surgery for hip replacement since we were not fully insured. So we requested a change of doctors, and now, the new doctor is saying "No one will be able to do hip replacement on you ever. It's too far gone, and they have found fluid up there and are going to do an extraction of the fluid to find out what the infection is. If it is staph, it will always there and no one will be able to give you a hip replacement." Sounds like another Dr who doesn't want to get involved, since I have read of people having an infection in their hip that must be cured before they then HAD the hip replacement surgery!

We are at wits end on what to do. This doctor said "Eventually what's left of the ball of your hip joint will kind of meld into the bone and the pain will get better, and you'll be able to walk a little bit." How encouraging!

Any advice appreciated. Does this all sound like nonsense because we aren't insured?

Thanks
Tom