Femoral Anteversion Operation for 17yr old DD. Any experience anyone?

[paranoidandroidwreckmyownlife]

DD has been under the care of an orthapeadic surgeon for 2yrs, having physio for 18m to try and strengthen her muscles with the aim of walking straighter.

She was a very sporty girl, loved playing football running, athletics etc, but always struggled after long distances, knees swelled up, eventually by the age of 15 she couldn't do any sport without being crippled with knee pain.
She didn't in-toe so wasn't obvios she had FA, it seems that her thigh bones are twisted too far inwards, her knee's point almost towards each other when standing straight, but her shins are twisted outward, so feet seem good directionally.
Saw consultant yesterday, he said she will have to live with chronic low level pain, and not be able to do any activities for the rest of her life without pain, or operate to straighten fenurs, only options left. If left she will most likely be crippled with arthritis at an early age too.
At 17 it's her decision but she wants Op's as wants to get back to an active lifestyle. Due to the positioning of her shins, she may end up with toes pointing outward (think ballet feet) and need the same cut, pin and plate ops on her shins too eventually.
Anybody ant experience of femoral anteversion ops, at any age?? She is also hypermobile too.

[JellyBelly10]

I'm really sorry you and your daughter are having to deal with this, the prospect of major surgery when you don't really know if it's the right thing to do is such a terrible decision to make when it's your child. My son had to have a femoral osteotomy earlier this year (he's only 6) and it was the hardest decision to make as there was (and still is) no guarantee that it will have a good outcome for him or make any diffreence to his long-term mobility. So whilst his problem was not the same as your daughter's we still had a similar decision to make. What helped us make that deciison was finding a Consultant who we had total faith in. We had originally been dealing with my son's condition (perthes disease) at our local hospital and I never really had that much confidence in the consultant, can't reallly explain why, I just didn't feel he was specialised enough in the surgery he was talking to us about doing (he said he did it about twice a year on average and was not particularly specialised in paediatric surgery...and in fact his specialism was knee surgery and my son was having surgery to help a hip problem). I did lots of research and ended up seeking a second opinion from a specific surgeon at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital even though it is not local to us. You have every right to do that on the NHS. I just felt that if my child had to go through surgery then it had to be done by someone I had utmost faith had the best knowledge, experience and specialism in the type of surgery we were talking about. So that's where we ended up and the decision just felt right. So, number one thing for you to consider is, do you have total faith in your consultant, have you asked him how often he performs this sort of surgery, what is his success rate etc, can you be put in touch with other families that have had a child have this surgery performed by him? The second thing I was going to suggest was to read and research all the appropriate threads and discussions on a website called Knee Guru
If you go to the main home-page you'll see three boxes, one of which says 'bulletins'. Go to bulletins and then in the search box on the left-hand side put 'femoral anteversion' or try 'derotational osteotomy' or anything else you feel is relevant. And then read all the threads and you'll find lots of examples of people who have had this sort of surgery, or who, like you, are seeking advice about it. Or of course you culd start your own thread there and ask people's advice there, it's much more targeted than hoping someone will come along here. Although it's an English site it has members from all over the world and there are bound to be lots of people who can talk to you about this conditiona nd the prospect of surgery and its pros and cons. I really hope that your daughter ends up with the best outcome she can have, whatever you choose to do.

[paranoidandroidwreckmyownlife]

Jelly, thank you so much. I could hug you! This is exactly what i was looking for. i want her to read a post FO op diary to know what she's going to face. She's old enough to do that, she needs to be prepared.
Which hospital were you originally at? we are at Addenbrookes under Adreas Rhem. He seems very knowledgeable, does lots of babies and children dislocated hip cases too, but DD's is bit rarer.
Thankfully he's talking about a far less agressive schedule of ops now she's older, just started her A levels, alway working hard so disrupting study for weeks on end didn't sit well with her.

[JellyBelly10]

Glad you think the Knee Guru website might help. We were originaly under the Royal Berkshire in Reading, nothing wrong with the hospital, nothing wrong with the Consultant, but I knew that what we were dealing with wasn't his specialism and everything seemed to point to a man called Mr Hashemi-Nejad at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital...so that's where we've ended up and I couldn't be happier with how things have gone. I must say that the RNOH is considered to be the UK's centre of excellence for any kind of orthopaedic problems and bone-related surgery....so it may still be worth you having a look at their website //www.rnoh.nhs.uk and asking your GP to refer you for a second opinion, because it can't hurt to have a second opinion and at the end of the day even if you end up having the surgery at Addenbrookes at least you will know you explored another route and covered all the bases before going ahead with something that is so major. Despite what their website says about an 18 week waiting time, we were seen 9 days after our GP referred us because I chased it up and made sure the RNOH were aware that we potentially had surgery sceduled at another hospital so couldn't wait any longer.
But anyway, just looking at the Knee Guru website, this looks like a good post-op thread for your daughter to read (with some good photos posted of the outcome fo surgery) and it's a positive story! Lyndsey's Derotational Osteotomy
This one is relevant too:
JennyLynn's Derotational Osteotomy
Anyway, I'm sure you're perfectly capable of looking up the appropriate threads yourself!! So I'll leave you to it! My son's oseotomy was back in January ...so the next surgery is this coming January to open the thigh up again and take out the screws and plate...even though that's obviously not as major as the original surgery it's still such a worry...don't underestimate how stressful it will be for you when she goes for surgery...so make sure you read some of the threads too so you can hopefully focus on the positive outcome and also so that you can arm yourself with lots of knowledge so you know what to expect from her recovery. Good luck :)

[EllieandJessie]

Hi. I realise this post is five years old but wonder if your daughter went through with the surgery? And was it successful? My daughter is 15, also under Andreas Rehm at Addenbrookes and has been told she needs femoral osteotomy surgery on both legs......and I'm going for a second opinion in Feb. Thanks

[Fearpho1]

Hi my daughter is 15 and having physio at the moment to see if it works before they talk about op. Did either of your girls have it and it all work out?? My daughter dances boxes and gymnastics but is really suffering constantly

[KatieD87]

My daughter is 14 and we have just been told she needs surgery for femoral anteversion. How did your daughter get on with her journey @par