Five weeks out and my operated leg feels a good inch LONGER. Will it even out or have they left me lopsided?

#1bernadette.o(Joined Sep 2026 · 2 posts)September 20, 2026, 9:18 pm

Hello, first post. I've been lurking since before my op and this board talked me through the constipation week, so thank you all for that already.

Right hip, five weeks on Tuesday. Pain is much better than before, sleeping on my back with the pillow, all fine. But since about week two I've been convinced my right leg is longer. When I stand at the sink I feel like I'm on a step. My walking frame days are behind me but I've got this feeling of vaulting over the right leg every time it swings through. I held my trousers up against each other on the bed last night and the right hem definitely looks lower.

Nobody mentioned this at all. Is this a thing? Has my surgeon just got it wrong? I've got my six week check in a fortnight and I'm already rehearsing what I'll say.

#2moira1963(Joined Oct 2025 · 19 posts)September 20, 2026, 10:05 pm

Bernadette, I had EXACTLY the step at the sink feeling. Mine was the left. I was sure they'd put a longer leg on me and I'd be in a built up shoe forever. By about ten weeks it had just gone and I couldn't tell you when.

Do not trust the trouser test, by the way. My trousers were cut wonky to begin with, it turned out.

#3trev_lefthip(Joined Jul 2025 · 19 posts)September 21, 2026, 9:40 am

Felt long for me too for a good month. Physio said my pelvis was still hitched up from years of limping and the leg just felt long because the rest of me hadn't caught up. Stretches sorted it.

#4Ms Priya RamanSurgical moderator(Joined Oct 2024 · 91 posts)September 23, 2026, 8:55 am

bernadette.o said:

Has my surgeon just got it wrong?

Bernadette, the feeling you describe is one of the commonest things people notice in the first weeks, and in most cases the legs turn out to be equal or very close. Raise it at your six week check, by all means, but here is why it is probably not what it feels like.

Arthritis usually wears the hip down a little over years, and the body adapts by tilting the pelvis and tightening the muscles on that side. The operation restores the leg to something near its proper length, but the pelvis and muscles are still arranged around the old hip, so the new leg feels too long. This is called an apparent or functional difference, and it typically fades over weeks to a few months as the muscles relax and you stand straighter. In one series of people followed after surgery, about 14 in 100 had this kind of difference at around a month, and it had settled in all of them by six months. Perception also tends to run ahead of reality: in one study, of the people who felt their legs were uneven years afterwards, only about a third had a measurable difference on X-ray.

A true difference does happen. Surgeons plan for equal legs but sometimes accept a few millimetres of lengthening to keep the joint stable, because stability protects against dislocation. When a real difference is enough to bother someone, a shoe raise usually deals with it, and further surgery for leg length alone is uncommon.

What I can't do is measure your legs from here, and neither can a pair of trousers. Your team can examine you properly and, if needed, compare both sides on an X-ray. In the meantime keep up your exercises, especially the ones that strengthen the muscles holding the pelvis level. Haidee covers leg length differences in hip replacement risks and complications, and the way it overlaps with an early limp is in limping after a hip replacement. If the leg ever suddenly looks shorter or turned, with pain or difficulty bearing weight, that is a different matter and needs urgent attention the same day.

#5gardeninggwen(Joined Jan 2025 · 29 posts)September 24, 2026, 12:30 pm

Mine felt long, then normal, then for one confusing week felt SHORT. My physio laughed and said that was my pelvis overcorrecting. All settled by about three months. The bodies we have, honestly.

#6bernadette.o(Joined Sep 2026 · 2 posts)October 14, 2026, 5:46 pm

Six week check done, reporting back. Surgeon watched me walk, had me lie down and measured, and looked at the X-ray from the day after the op. Her words: "a few millimetres, well within what we'd expect, and you won't notice it once your pelvis levels out". She said the step feeling is my pelvis still sitting the way it did when the old hip was bad.

Physio has given me two stretches for the front of the hip and some side lying work. And I've stopped measuring hems. The sink step is already less, or I've got used to it, and either is fine by me.