THE PAIN EXPERT’S DIARY

We sPeAk to an expert in the field who is also a patient. OVER 35 years, Martyn Porter, the medical director of the National Joint Registry and a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, has relieved the suffering of more than 4,000 patients by fitting them with artificial hip joints.

But the empathy he feels for his patients at Wrightington Hospital in Wigan stems partly from his own experiences.

Aged 20, he had a motorbike crash that damaged his left hip, triggering osteoarthritis. ‘I went years with a really bad hip,’ he says. ‘My left leg was an inch shorter than my right. I was quite restricted.

‘I knew the surgery would be complex, so I managed for 28 years before the pain became so bad I could no longer work effectively,’ he says.

In 2004, he asked friend and colleague Ian Stockley to do his hip replacement. He’s still walking on it 15 years later — which is ‘not that unusual’ for a hip joint. ‘I had a good surgeon and implant, and looked after it by remaining active,’ he says.

His message for anyone contemplating a replacement joint is to try non-surgical treatments first, ‘but remember that for most patients surgery is safe and highly effective’.