Navigating Hip Replacement: Seeking Advice and Second Opinions Online
By Jay Moon
Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. The information shared here is based on my personal research and experience and is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Why Online Communities Matter When You’re Arranging Your Own Surgery
When you’re facing a hip replacement and trying to make sense of it all, one of the most useful things you can do is talk to people who’ve already been through it. That sounds obvious, but it took me a while to realise how much good information is sitting in online forums and Facebook groups, if you know where to look.
I want to be clear upfront: none of this replaces an actual surgeon. But when you’re trying to understand the difference between an anterior and posterior approach, or you want to know what the first two weeks post-surgery actually feel like rather than what the hospital leaflet says, real patients who’ve lived it are often more useful than a fifteen-minute consultation. Especially when, like me, you’re arranging this entirely on your own in a country where you have no support network and the doctors aren’t exactly forthcoming.
This page is a guide to the communities I’ve found most useful, with some practical notes on how to use them without wasting your time.
Reddit’s structure works well for medical questions. Threads are searchable, discussions go deep, and you can ask something fairly specific and get a range of responses — sometimes from people with medical backgrounds, sometimes from patients who’ve been through exactly what you’re dealing with.
The general medical subreddits are a reasonable starting point:
| Subreddit | What it’s useful for |
|---|---|
| r/AskDocs | Large community, plenty of verified healthcare professionals. Good for questions about imaging or symptoms where you want someone medically literate to weigh in. |
| r/medicaladvice | More general, but plenty of hip-related threads and recovery discussions. |
| r/AskMedical | Useful for clinical questions like whether you’re a candidate for a particular procedure at your age or condition. |
| r/MedicalQuestions | Catch-all for pre- and post-op questions. |
| r/ChronicPain | Worth knowing about if your hip issues are tangled up with long-term pain management. |
| r/Orthopedics | More technical. Good for implant questions, longevity, biomechanics. |
The really useful ones for hip replacement specifically are smaller and more focused:
- r/TotalHipReplacement — This is the one to bookmark. Everything from pre-op anxiety to progress updates months after surgery. If you want to know what something actually feels like on the ground, this is where to look.
- r/HipImpingement — More relevant if you’re earlier in the diagnostic process, but useful for understanding how things can progress toward a replacement decision.
Practical note: getting past the AutoMod
If you want to post anonymously using a throwaway account — which is completely sensible for health questions — new accounts often get caught by the AutoMod, the automated spam filter that bigger subreddits use. The way around it is to spend a week or two building up a small amount of karma first. A few comments on r/AskReddit or somewhere similarly low-stakes gets you to the 50 or so points that most subreddits require before your posts go through without being held. If you do get caught anyway, you can message the moderators and explain — they’re usually fine about it. And when you do post, be specific. “I have bilateral stage four AVN and I’m trying to decide between surgical approaches” will get you far better responses than a vague description of hip pain.
Facebook Groups
Facebook is more personal and less searchable than Reddit, but better for ongoing peer support. Most of the reputable groups are private, so you have to request to join. The links below go to Facebook search results pages for each group name — from there you can find and request access:
- Hip Replacement Recovery Support Group & Forum
- Hip Replacement Forum for Active and Young People
- Original Hip Replacement Total Support Group
- THR Active Lifestyle
Dedicated Forums
If you want something more structured and permanently searchable, these dedicated forums are worth bookmarking.
BoneSmart.org is the main one. It’s been running since 2001, the archives are enormous, and it’s properly moderated. The Hip Surgery Pre-Op Area and Hip Surgery Recovery Area are both active. The old direct link to the hip-specific section no longer works, but the main forum page gets you there without any trouble.
Mayo Clinic Connect — the original joint replacement group link is gone, but the Arthritis and Joint Conditions group covers the same ground. The Mayo Clinic connection means the moderation is careful and the information tends to be reliable.
Patient.info Community — the old forum URL format is dead but the Bones, Joints and Muscles section still hosts active hip replacement discussions.
Smart Patients — more research-focused than the others. Good if you want to look at clinical trial data alongside patient experience.
A few more worth knowing about:
- Inspire Arthritis Community — joint replacement discussions alongside general arthritis support, active membership.
- Creaky Joints — curated links and educational material for replacement candidates.
- OrthoInfo — the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ patient education site. Not a forum, but genuinely useful for understanding your condition and what the different procedures actually involve.
- Gransnet Health Forum — UK-based, active community, particularly good if you’re older and want peer advice from people in a similar demographic.
A few general notes
Whatever you’re reading online, check the date. Medical practice changes, implant options change, and a thread from 2015 about surgical approaches may not reflect what’s currently available. Reddit is better than most for recent discussions; dedicated forums tend to have older archives mixed in with new posts, so it’s worth filtering.
Be specific when you post. The more detail you give about your diagnosis, age, surgical approach under consideration and any complicating factors, the more useful the responses will be. A vague question gets vague answers.
And use anonymised accounts for anything personal. This applies especially to Reddit and any public forum — you’d be surprised how identifiable details can add up even when you think you’re being careful.
None of this replaces sitting in front of a surgeon with your imaging. But going into that consultation having already spent time in these communities means you’ll ask better questions, spot a non-answer when you hear one, and have a clearer sense of what good actually looks like. In my experience, that’s worth quite a lot.