Hip Implants After PMMA Injections

Q: Dr. Eppley, Can I get hip implants if I have PMMA injections already in my hips? is it best to have it removed or just some of it removed beforehand? Because my hip area is already tight and some days I am in pain. These hip implants were not heard of when I got the PMMA injections. It still was not enough to make a difference that I don’t still get told I look like a man from the waist down and I still barely fit into trousers so it didn’t exactly make me curvy for how much was injected. I am meant to be petite, and that is fine, but I still wanted better proportion. I’m 5’m 2” and 103 lb. I do have a doctor that will try fat grafting although I’m thin. He said he could also remove some or most of the PMMA. But I had big indentations without the PMMA so that might leave me looking worse, especially with really not enough fat to maybe fill it back up, let alone to get bigger than I am now. The only thing that could still be worthwhile about that is he would be trying to slim my waist more and that would help my waist to hip ratio, but won’t change fact I have big shoulders so I would still look manly without bigger hips and only a smaller waist.

A: If you have PMMA material in the area of potential hip implants and the tissues are tight and it has some pain associated with it, you would not be a candidate for hip implants. There would be a substantially increased risk of infection. It is never wise to put implants in any tissue bed that is not in a near pristine condition, does have foreign material in it and has inadequate subcutaneous fat thickness. If your hip areas are pretreated with fat injections and the tissues become softer, you may then become a potential candidate for hip implant surgery.

Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana