Twelve weeks post op and the limp comes BACK every day by teatime. Physio says my glutes have switched off. Does this ever actually go?

#1Helen W.(Joined Apr 2026 · 11 posts)September 9, 2026, 7:35 pm

Left hip, twelve weeks tomorrow, and I need to hear from people further along than me because I'm losing faith a bit.

Mornings I'm fine. Genuinely fine, I walked the dog round the reservoir on Saturday morning and my husband said he couldn't tell which side had been done. By about four o'clock the same day I had the old roll back, that lean over to the left and the hitch to get the right leg through, exactly the walk I had for the two years before the op when the hip was bone on bone. No pain. That's the odd bit. It doesn't HURT, it just goes wonky, and it's the same wonky as before.

Saw the physio on Thursday and she watched me walk up and down and said my glutes on that side have "switched off" and I'm hip hitching, and gave me side lying leg lifts and standing on one leg at the sink. Which I'm doing. But I'd sort of assumed by three months I'd be walking normally full stop and instead I've got a walk that's good for about five hours a day and then gives up. Is this what everyone gets? Does it just fade or do some people keep the evening limp for good? And should I be worried that it's the SAME limp as before, like the op didn't fix the actual problem?

#2pbike60(Joined Feb 2025 · 36 posts)September 9, 2026, 9:12 pm

Same limp as before is exactly what you'd expect, if that helps. The limp wasn't in the joint, it was in how you'd learned to walk round the joint, and they didn't operate on that.

Mine did the teatime thing until about month six, then I noticed one week that it wasn't happening, and I couldn't tell you the day it stopped. It got shorter and shorter before it went. Five hours of good walking at three months sounds about where I was.

#3gardeninggwen(Joined Jan 2025 · 29 posts)September 10, 2026, 8:40 am

The switched off glutes thing is real and I'm proof of the other side of it, because I was the person who stopped doing the sheet at seven weeks once I could walk without pain, and I kept a tired-evening lurch until well past a year. When I finally went back to a physio at fourteen months she found the same thing yours has, and eight weeks of proper side lying work and single leg standing did more than the previous twelve months of just walking about had.

So I'd say do the boring exercises now while you're three months and not fourteen. The one that helped me most was the single leg stand, and the trick she gave me was to do it in front of the mirror and watch the opposite hip. If it drops, the muscle's not holding. Mine dropped like a drawbridge to start with.

Also worth asking which approach you had. A friend had the lateral one where they go through the side muscles and she was warned her lurch might take longer to go, and it did, but it went.

#4trev_lefthip(Joined Jul 2025 · 13 posts)September 10, 2026, 1:02 pm

Left hip, posterior, teatime limp lasted till about five months and then just wasn't there any more. The bit I'd add is DISTANCE. I found if I did one long walk I paid for it with two days of lurching, but two short walks a day and the lurch came on later each week. Little and often, it's tedious but it's true.

#5Haidee MarshAdmin(Joined Aug 2024 · 268 posts)September 11, 2026, 9:47 am

Helen W. said:

should I be worried that it's the SAME limp as before, like the op didn't fix the actual problem

Helen, the short answer to that worry is no, and it's the worry I had myself, almost word for word. I walked out of hospital with exactly the roll I'd walked in with, minus the pain, and spent weeks convinced something had been put in crooked. It hadn't. The limp is a set of habits your muscles and nerves learned over two years of protecting a sore joint, and the operation replaces the joint, not the habits. Ms Raman's phrase for the muscle on the outside of my hip was "a muscle that has forgotten its job", and once I heard it that way the whole thing stopped being frightening.

What you're describing is the fatigue version, which is the commonest and the most benign. The muscles that hold your pelvis level when you're on one leg, the hip abductors, have only a small reserve at three months, so the morning walk looks fine and the four o'clock one brings the lean back. Its signature is exactly what you've said: no pain, comes on with tiredness, goes with rest, and the good window gets longer week by week. Most people have lost the obvious limp by around three months, but the smooth, unconscious stride is a six to twelve month thing, and having limped for two years beforehand pushes you towards the later end, because there's more to unlearn. I wrote the whole thing up recently, including the three kinds of limp and how to tell them apart, in limping after a hip replacement.

Your physio has given you the right two exercises, and Gwen's mirror trick is the one I'd steal. Mine had me stand on the operated leg every time the kettle boiled, and I went from about four wobbling seconds to a steady half minute over roughly two months. The single cue that did more than any sheet was "lead with the hip, not the shoulder". The exercises themselves and what each is for are in the hip replacement exercise guide.

The one thing I'd want you to hold in the back of your mind is the shape of a limp that isn't the ordinary kind: getting worse rather than better, new pain in the groin or the front of the thigh especially on the first steps after sitting, or a feeling that the hip's giving way. Yours has none of that, and it's improving, so it's the normal kind. But if it ever changes shape, that's a phone call to the team and not a thread.

#6Helen W.(Joined Apr 2026 · 11 posts)September 19, 2026, 6:20 pm

Eight days on and reporting in, early I know, because I hated reading threads that just stopped.

Doing the side lying lifts and the sink standing twice a day, and I did the mirror thing and Gwen is right, my hip was dropping like a drawbridge and I had NO idea. It already drops a little less, or I am imagining it, either is fine. The teatime limp is still there but on an ordinary day this week it has been nearer six than four before it shows, so the window is getting longer just like everyone said. And I've had it confirmed I had the posterior approach, so no excuse about the side muscles.

Not fixed. But going the right way, and I've stopped thinking they put it in crooked, which was frankly half the problem.