My mother has been diagnosed with AVN and her doctor is going to do a core depression of the right hip. My concern is that she also has scleroderma and does not heal well because of the extremely poor circulation problems associated with the scleroderma. Is there a risk of her not healing after the core depression and if so what are the consequences of not healing properly.

-- Corinne Northem (cnorthem@yahoo.com), April 26, 2004

Answers

Hi Corinne I was diagnosed with AVN in my hips and shoulders when I was 18 following treatment for Leukaemia (the steroids caused it). I had a core decompression on my left hip and it worked really well. There were signs on the x-ray that the bone did start to re-form, so the circulation had been improved. This was a great procedure to delay the THR i had just 10 weeks ago on my left hip. I have no idea what scleroderma does to the bone, but i would definitely recommend the core decompression even if it is just to delay a bigger operation. as for the healing process, i had just finished two and a half years of chemo, so my immune system was extremely low and I didn't have any problems.Good luck and I wish your mother well.

-- Sian Jones (siankj@hotmail.com), April 28, 2004.