Beverly Myers

For nearly 30 years, Bev Myers has been a South Bay icon for senior fitness and exercise. So, last year, when the 76-year-old began suffering right hip pain so bad she couldn’t teach her usual seven dance aerobics classes a week, she couldn’t believe it.

If you’ve been around Santa Clara Valley for a while, you’ve probably seen Bev in action. You may have caught her leading the Sizzling Seniors — a group of older adult volunteers who love to entertain — during one of more than 1,000 community events they’ve danced at over the past 30 years. Or, you may have watched her in 1996, as she jogged down El Camino Real in Santa Clara — an active senior carrying the Olympic torch.

Needless to say, Bev was not used to be held back by pain.

“I take good care of myself, eat healthy, have a strong belief in God and a very positive outlook on life. But, I was having a lot of pain and couldn’t figure out why,” she remembers. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would need a new hip, but that’s exactly what happened.”

Bev tried rest, alternative treatments, stretching, and tissue remodeling without much help. She found some relief with pain medication but didn’t like her growing need for pills.

When she turned to a surgeon with the Silicon Valley Joint Replacement Center, she found the answer.

First, Bev learned her problem was due to congenital hip dysplasia. This condition causes the hip joint to become unstable, leading to degeneration of the joint and chronic pain. Her doctor told Bev, if she hadn’t been dancing for 30 years, she would have started experiencing pain at a much younger age.

After the appropriate preparation, including education with the Center’s Joint Care Coordinator, she had total hip replacement surgery. Bev was up and walking right away and went home on the second day after surgery.

“I had no complications and was very happy with the entire process,” she reports.

By the time she got home, Bev no longer needed prescribed pain medication, though she did continue to take Tylenol for about four weeks. By six weeks after surgery, she was pain-free.

In the first few days after returning home, Bev’s husband helped out, bringing meals and whatever she needed to the second floor of their home. But soon, she was taking the stairs on her own.

Four weeks after surgery, without even a cane, Bev participated in a dance rehearsal for an upcoming Sizzling Seniors program.

“I know I was supposed to wait six weeks before dancing, but I just couldn’t stay away,” she admits. “After that one rehearsal I waited the full six weeks my surgeon had recommended before starting to teach dance aerobics again.”

Less than four months after hip replacement surgery, Bev is “back in the saddle,” as she likes to say.

“I feel like this hip is mine now and I can do just about anything.”