Jack Brennan, from Dublin, was told he was too young for a double hip replacement at just 18 after spending years in immense pain – but he finally got the surgery five years later
A man who was diagnosed with a rare disease in childhood underwent a double hip replacement at the age of just 23 – five years after being told he’d have to wait 22 years for the much needed surgery.
The Dublin lad was diagnosed with a rare disease as a child that affected the femoral head of his femur – the part of the bone that fits into the socket of his pelvis to form the hip joint. After years of living without any impact from the condition, Jack started experiencing excruciating pain at 18, but was told he was too young for surgery to replace his hips.
Jack revealed: “I was more or less told five years ago that my hips were in a bad way and I needed to get them replaced, but because of my age it wasn’t something they would do.
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“I was left in a position where they told me they wouldn’t help me, even though I needed the surgery but it wasn’t to do with wait-times, it was pretty much a stone cold, ‘You’re too young for it’.”
The rare disease that wreaked havoc on Jack’s hips is known as Perthes, which affects about 5 to 10 children out of every 100,000 per year. Jack told RSVP Live: “Most of the issues I had with my hips were in my childhood, between the ages of five to 10. I had this disease in my hips called Perthes.
“It’s when blood stops flowing to the hip, so the femoral head of your hip dies and stops growing. I had it in both my hips. Around that age I had chronic pain, a heavy limp and a different childhood experience to most. I was in-and-out of sports depending on how my health was”
Jack enjoyed good health for the next eight years, but once he reached adulthood, the pain came back. “By the time I got to 18, I started experiencing pain in my right hip. When I went to get an X-ray, it showed that my hips were structurally bad. There was very little cartilage left and there was very little space left in my hip joints,” he revealed.
“I was told that there was a lot of inflammation, I was going to get arthritis, it was going to get worse and if it kept going like this by the time I’m 40 I’ll be in a wheelchair. They said it would be a slow decline until then.
“A doctor told me that if they gave me a double hip replacement, I was going to go out, play sports and destroy it. I actually broke down and said, ‘It’s not about that. I’m just in so much pain. I won’t’.”
In the following years, Jack searched for a doctor willing to perform the surgery, speaking with several different surgeons. In the meantime, he managed to get injections to help with his pain.
“I got three in the space of three years, but it’s just temporary relief, ” he admitted. Eventually, Jack told a surgeon: “I can’t keep going on in pain. How do you go to college? How do you go to work? How do you socialise and live your life when you’re in pain 24/7?”
After initially being told he would have to wait until he was 40 for a hip replacement, he found a doctor willing to do the surgery – and got both done at the same time in February 2025. He added: “My surgeon got my legs the same length, because they were different lengths beforehand.”
It’s been around eight months since his operation and he’s now reaching the stage where he can feel the benefits of it. “I’m not in pain anymore,” Jack shared.
Describing his quality of life as being “night and day” before and after the operation, Jack didn’t know what to do about the agony he had been enduring. “The years before the surgery were battling chronic pain every minute of every day. My quality of life was very poor,” he said.
“I had become very inactive and it was all about managing the pain. There was a lot of time inside, taking painkillers and being miserable. I had to move to working from home full-time. I’m studying to become a chartered accountant and I was failing exams left, right and centre because I wasn’t up to studying. I was in a really dark place, but since the surgery, the weight of the world has been lifted without being in that pain. “
Most people would associate a hip replacement with the older generation, so it wasn’t easy for him to find information or support online from others in their early 20s who had undergone the same experience. So, while he was on the mend, Jack started sharing his journey on TikTok – and his story struck a chord with thousands.
“About two weeks after my surgery, I posted my first TikTok video about it and it blew up,” he revealed. “It made me realise that no-one is really talking about having a hidden health issue, having a hidden disability and getting double hip replacement young.”
He’s been labelled lazy for opting for the lift instead of the stairs. Jack confessed: “They don’t see that I can’t walk up the stairs. ” He wants to see young people grappling with health issues, such as chronic conditions, taken more seriously within the healthcare sector.
“I think there’s this mindset that says, ‘If you’re young, you’ll be fine’. I think, generally, young people aren’t taken as seriously,” he expressed. “A lot of us look fine. If you saw me walking to the hospital, I’m 6’1″, I look fit, I look healthy, I look like I go for a run everyday, but I barely made it up the stairs.”
Jack is now championing awareness for young people with chronic pain and hidden disabilities on social media. You can follow his journey on TikTok under his account @jack__brennan.