Seven weeks and still reaching for one crutch. Is everybody else off theirs by now?

#1sylvia1966(Joined Jun 2026 · 7 posts)August 11, 2026, 2:26 pm

Seven weeks tomorrow, left hip, and I am the only person I know still carrying a stick about.

Indoors I'm fine, I forget about it, I've walked room to room without anything for a fortnight. But the second I go out of the front door I want that crutch in my hand and I can't tell any more whether that's my hip needing it or my head needing it. The woman in my aquacise class had hers done a week after me and she was off everything at five weeks and told me so twice.

Everything I read says two to six weeks for walking aids and I am past the end of that and it's making me feel like I've done something wrong. Did anyone else drag on longer? And is there any harm in keeping it if it makes me go out more?

#2pbike60(Joined Feb 2025 · 36 posts)August 11, 2026, 4:02 pm

Eight and a half weeks for me before I went out empty handed and I'd had a straightforward op. The two to six thing is a range, not a deadline, and ranges have a top end for a reason.

Also, be honest about the surface. I was fine on the flat and useless on wet leaves and the slope down to the canal. Keeping a stick for the canal and leaving it at home for the high street would have been the sensible answer months before I worked it out.

#3gardeninggwen(Joined Jan 2025 · 29 posts)August 12, 2026, 7:55 am

There is one thing worth watching though, and my physio was hard on me about it. Hanging onto an aid you don't need can quietly keep a limp going, because you lean on it and the new hip never has to take a proper full load. She had me walk down the corridor with and without and the difference in my gait was obvious to her and invisible to me.

So I wouldn't say keep it forever without asking anyone. I'd say show someone who knows what they're looking at. The answer might well be keep it outdoors and bin it indoors, which is what I ended up doing for about three weeks.

#4moira1963(Joined Oct 2025 · 16 posts)August 12, 2026, 12:41 pm

Nine weeks. And the woman in your class is either exceptional or lying slightly, and there's more of the second than people admit.

#5Haidee MarshAdmin(Joined Aug 2024 · 268 posts)August 13, 2026, 9:18 am

Sylvia, from my own diary: I was off both crutches at four weeks indoors and still taking one out to the shops at week eight, and I remember exactly the feeling you're describing, that it must mean something has gone wrong. It didn't. What it meant was that pavements are uneven and I didn't yet trust my balance on them, which is a completely different problem from my hip not being strong enough.

That's the distinction I'd hold onto. Needing an aid because the hip cannot take the load is one thing, and it's the thing physiotherapists want to know about. Wanting one because a kerb frightens you is another, and it usually fixes itself as confidence returns rather than as strength returns, but only if you keep going out. A crutch that gets you out of the house twice a day is doing more good than the pride that keeps you in.

Two practical things. Which hand it goes in matters more than people realise: a single crutch or stick generally goes in the hand on the opposite side to the operated hip, so it swings with that leg and unloads it properly. And Gwen's point about the limp is the real one. What the aids are actually doing and how strength comes back is in the hip replacement exercise guide, and the shape of the whole thing week by week is in my recovery timeline.

Whether you specifically should still have it at seven weeks is a question for your physiotherapist, and I'd genuinely book the appointment rather than take a vote here. Two minutes of watching you walk tells them what a week of this thread cannot.

#6sylvia1966(Joined Jun 2026 · 7 posts)August 27, 2026, 8:09 pm

Saw the physio on Monday. She watched me walk with it and without it and said the hip was taking the load fine and I was, in her words, using it as a comfort blanket on the way to the shops, which is a phrase I'm going to be hearing for a while.

She wasn't cross about it. She gave me two extra balance exercises, told me to leave it at home for the short familiar routes and take it for anything unfamiliar or wet, and said most people quietly stop within a few weeks of doing that. I did the corner shop without it on Wednesday and did not fall over. Small, but I'll take it.

Also, the woman from aquacise has just told me she still uses a stick in the garden. So.