Three decades of standing as she cut, colored and styled clients' hair led to continuous pain and discomfort in Amy Peterman's right hip.
“I’ve been a hairdresser now 30 years,” says Peterman, who lives in Manitowoc. “Doing hair for all those years, shifting my weight to the right when I stand, just kind of wear and tear and standing like 10 hours a day didn’t help me.”
Before Peterman found relief from hip replacement surgery done by Dr. Craig L. Olson of Orthopedics & Sports Medicine BayCare Clinic, she went through a long series of unsuccessful treatments from other doctors at other area practices. They included:
- A cortisone shot.
- Surgery to repair a torn hip labrum. The labrum lines the hip socket.
- Surgery to repair a second labrum tear.
- Surgery to repair a third labrum tear.
When her hip again began to ache and throb, Peterman found Olson through word of mouth.
“I chose Dr. Olson because I’d heard a lot of people around town tell me he was wonderful, bedside manner was amazing. Did some research on him, watched the (Facebook livestream) videos and stuff like that and he was the best for me,” says Peterman, who is in her late 40s.
“Saw him and he said, ‘Oh, boy, you are a train wreck. We need to get this done.’”
Olson, an orthopedic surgeon, performed Peterman’s anterior total hip replacement. It’s a procedure during which the surgeon accesses the hip from the front of the body, separating the surrounding muscles, rather than cutting and reattaching them.
It’s an increasingly popular alternative to posterior hip replacement surgery, during which the surgeon accesses the hip through an incision close to the buttocks or the side of the hip, often cutting through muscle.
Entering the hip through the front, or anterior area, results in less trauma to the soft tissues around the hip, fostering a faster recovery.
“The experience was spot-on perfect,” Peterman says of her surgery with Olson. “His nurse practitioner, his staff, everybody was very informative.”
She had eight weeks of physical therapy after surgery. That was longer than most hip replacement patients need because of Peterman’s many previous procedures, she said.
“At the end of all of that, going back to work after 10 weeks, slowly, it was just amazing. I didn’t have any pain. I had no restrictions. I could walk upstairs,” she says. “I could do what I needed to do. … Yeah, amazing.”
She’s back to walking trails with her children and is looking forward to walks with her infant granddaughter.
Peterman remains impressed by Olson, nurse practitioner Cathy Sukowaty and Olson’s staff. She frequently praises him to her clients.
“I do tell a lot of people, you know, I would recommend Dr. Olson. If you can’t get in to Dr. Olson, I recommend Dr. DiRaimondo or Dr. Henry in the office, too.”