Tasks like walking or using the stairs shouldn’t be painful. But if you’re dealing with knee pain, it can make these daily movements difficult. To alleviate the pain, surgery is an option for patients to consider. Oftentimes, surgeons choose implants from a range of pre-manufactured sizes, but one Pierre man recently needed a custom implant.
Joe Ashley had been dealing with knee pain for awhile, but he wasn’t ready for surgery, until recently.
“I saw Dr. Hagy about four years ago, I was having problems with my right knee and he took the X-rays and said you really need to have a knee replacement” said Ashley. “I waited until it got really bad and then waited too long and it was bad, I couldn’t hardly walk without having a lot of pain, I’d wake up every morning and the first step would be painful.”
Arthritis in his knee was causing the pain. He decided it was time to see Dr. Hagy again in Pierre and move forward with surgery.
Getting Ready For Knee Surgery
“When we take those X-rays and are planning for surgery then we do a preoperative template and that lets us know if we have the normal sizes around because if we don’t do that then you can get to surgery and we don’t have the size that fits you,” said orthopedic surgeon, Mark Hagy, MD. “When I templated, I saw that he was outside of the normal range and so then we decided we needed to do a custom implant.”
Joe is 6’11”, so it made sense he would need something custom. The next steps involved getting the implant made.
Why a Custom Implant Was Necessary
“They don’t have his size typically, so they set the whole process up with the guidance of the engineer and we make sure the measurements will fit that patient,” said Hagy. “It would be like having a fancy Italian car made for you by hand rather than having a general American off the shelf.”
Once the implant was finished, it was time to move forward with surgery.
“Then you do the standard knee replacement and there can’t be any mechanical issues because you’ve only got one implant there and you only have one chance to get it right operatively,” said Hagy.
No More Pain After Surgery
Now Joe is just over six months post-surgery and his daily tasks are much more manageable.
“As far as the joint itself, it just feels awesome to walk without pain. I don’t have to park in handicap anymore, I can do stairs, go for walks with my grandkids, so it’s a lot better,” said Ashley.
Stepping forward thanks to custom care close to home.
“We can do great things here within the scope of our care and we can do them here,” said Hagy.
This was the first time Dr. Hagy had done a custom knee implant with a patient.
Learn more about orthopedic care at Avera.
