Words you never want to hear from your treating physician. The New York Times quoted Dr. Kwon, a specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. The story describes the odd behavior of the metal debris generated by the all-metal hip replacements.
It appears that in some patients the tiny metal shavings interact with the body’s cells that are designed to remove foreign matter and create “biologically active metallic ions” that can destroy tissue. Many doctors have been slow to recognize the problem.
One woman in The New York Times story told how she had heard of the recall of the DePuy ASR hip implant, and was concerned because she had received that implant. Doctors ran basic blood tests that came back normal. She was not convinced, and insisted on an additional test, which showed very high metal content.
She is now suing DePuy, noting, “If I had not played an aggressive role, I think I would have had permanent damage.”
Yet another patient told of seeing seven doctors in a year. He was told not to worry or they just gave him pain medication. He eventually had to have extensive surgery to clean up the “dead zone” that surrounded his implant.