I've decided to start a blog with the hopes of helping someone else who may be in the same situation I am in, AND of course for my family and friends who want to stay informed.
I'll give a little background on my situation and then I will describe the procedures I've had thus far. I know everyone is different, but I'm going to describe my procedures I've had thus far and the way I've experienced them. I've spend many hours researching torn labrums and have had a hard time finding information that was helpful and helped calm my nerves. Hopefully my experiences will he seen as positive and help at least one person who is going through or will be going through what i've been through.
What's wrong with me???
I have a torn labrum in my right hip. What is a labrum?? The acetabular labrum is a ring of cartilage that surrounds the acetabulum (the socket of the hip joint). So mine is torn in the posterior portion of my hip. This apparently has occured because my pelvis is tilted so far forward that the head of my femur is rubbing on my hip socket, which over time has caused the labrum to tear.
My Journey...
September 2009-I started having some pain in my right groin. I didn't think much of it, because I always have aches and pains and thought it was just being caused by something I did at the gym. I continued to take the pain with the hopes it would just go away.
October 2009- things got really bad. I went Prarie Chicken hunting with Eric for a weekend and we did a lot walking through the prarie and fields. By the end of the weekend I had to physically lift my right leg up with my hands in order to take a step forward. Again, I thought the pain was just because we did so much walking. A few days went by and I was able to walk again without my hands assisting me, but realized I was unable to cross my right leg over my left. Well because of my dislike of doctors, I continued to live through the pain and inability to cross my legs until December. The inability to cross my legs was a big deal for me because of my job. Working with 5 year olds you are required to sit on the floor with them and move around with them. Well, I can't and that's when I knew I needed to go see a doctor. Below is a timeline of my doctor visits up until now.
December 2009-1st appointment with the doctor. Took x-rays and didn't see anything wrong with me. Told me to go physical therapy for 4 weeks. I did the therapy and actually did the exercises she gave me to do at home, but things continued to get worse, the pain changed on a daily basis and I never knew what the next day would bring.
January 2010-Because physical therapy didn't help I had MRI with dye contrast and a numbing agent called Marcaine (details to follow in a different post). The MRI which showed a tear in my right labrum. Because of the tear she wanted me to go see an Orthopedic Surgeon. She scheduled the appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon, but because he is the best around I couldn't get an appointment until the end of MAY. "SERIOUSLY???" was my thought and then "what can I do for the next 4 months to help me get through the pain?. My choices were either 4 advil every 4 hours for the next 4 months or a Cortisone shot in the hip. I went for the shot (details to follow in a different post) I had about 4 weeks of relief (you can get anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 years).
February 2010-Lived with the pain. Told a few people about my troubles, which turned out to be the best thing I had done yet. It turned out, that the mom of one of my current students is a physicans assistance for an orthopedic office who works with the surgeon I was scheduled to see in May. Becaues she is so great, she got my end of May appointment switched to the beginning of March. Not only did she help me switch my appointment, but she also has helped me with this whole labral tear thing. You see, she tore her labrum and had the same surgeon fix her hip that I am going to have fix mine (more on how great she is later).
March 2010-Appointment with the Surgeon. Had more x-rays and found out that my labral tear was caused because of the rotation of my pelvis. He told me i'm in the Moderate severity range with my rotation. He gave me 3 options 1) do nothing and live with it, 2) have a hip arthroscopy or 3) have a periactabular osteotomy. I chose the hip arthroscopy (details later). Surgery is scheduled for June 15. Following my appointment, I went over and had a 3D Cat Scan done of both my hips for the surgeon to use during surgery.
April-Did 3 sessions pre-op Physical Therapy with a preferred Physical Therapist that my surgeon likes to use. The pre-op PT is to strengthen the muscles around the hip so that the surgery is easier to recover from. I do the exercises on my good days, not on my bad. I don't really like the PT i've been working with so i'm on a mission to find a new one before surgery. I feel like I need to really connect to the PT because we are going to be spending a lot of time together in the up coming months and if we don't have a good connection, then that won't be good.
And that brings me to today...My bad days are starting to out-weigh my good days which is very frustrating to me. I'm having to give up a lot of my physical activities, including walking the dog and going to the gym. Even the little things like grocery shopping or carrying my neice around are starting to become challenging. It actually hurts to sit, stand and lay down now now. I have a lot of pressure in my groin, back and butt and nothing really helps relieve the pain. The pain continues to change from day do day and I'm getting "zinger" more and more frequently. What are "zingers?" "Zingers" are what I call the extremely painful pains that shot through my groin and last about 30 seconds. They are caused by the slighest incorrect pivot, change in flooring/grass, quick movements, or just because.
I'm going to go and see Chiropractor on Monday to see if he can help me manage the pain until my surgery. I talked with him today and he said he can help me get to my surgery date, so i'm hopefull and will keep you posted.
I know this is a ton of information, I promise my following post won't be this in depth, but I wanted to give a background to catch everyone up.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Reading your story sounded very similar to mine. I don't know how you have been dealing with this for almost a year. I am also a teacher and have been on crutches for the past 2 months. In September I noticed the inner hip/groin pain after walking or sitting for a while. I thought nothing and continued with life. In Oct. it started happening more often and lasting longer. In Nov. I was sitting on my bed got up and actually felt something tear. Ever since then I haven't been able to put weight on it. I've had an x-ray and 2 mri's. I've also been to an orthopedic dr. and an orthopedic surgeon. They are working together. I tried physical therapy after the 1st orthopedic dr. for 3 weeks. It just made everything worse. On the 28th I am going to get a steroid injection in my hip. Is this painful? If that doesn't work then the dr. wants to do arthroscopic surgery. I've only been dealing with this for 4 months and I can't take it anymore. Teaching is very difficult while being on crutches for almost 2 months. It was so great to see someone else who is going through the same thing. You will have to let me know if the surgery worked. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
ReplyDelete