My own Findings

In my last post, I wrote positive, positive, positive!! But what does this mean?
I have now self diagnosed myself as having a labral tear with some sort of femoracetabular impingement. A quick lit review does not turn up too much info, so off to my PT books, little luck there too. As always, my trusty friend google is here to help!
For days, I spent hours on the computer, finding out everything I could, and more importantly, finding someone who could help me. As a PT, I have seen my share of botched surgeries, although no surgeon will admit it was their fault, it is either the PT's fault for being too aggressive, or not aggressive enough, or the patients fault for not being compliant. I have always known that if I ever needed some sort of ortho work done, there was only one hosptial I would go to, so my surgeon had to be there.
Well, lucky for me, the 2 reputable surgeons in the area who perform arthroscopic surgery for hip labral tears are at that hospital. A quick call to a professor from PT school eliminates one of them, as do insurance issues.
My call to make the appointment did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. The receptionist tells me that this doctor only deals with sports injuries of the hip, since my "injury" did not occur during sports, he would not see me. Seriously, but I have what he treats. Well, I guess he'll see you but if he thinks you are not appropriate for his practice he will refer you out.
OK, so I had chosen a surgeon, and had actually made the call to see him, and his receptionist was going to stand in my way of getting an appointment, no way.
OK, so why don't you give me the appointment, and have his PA call me, I will discuss it with her, and if she thinks my case is not worthy of his time, I will cancel the appointment. This seemed like a good compromise to her, so I got an appointment for 4 weeks later.
2 days later, the PA called me, I explained what had happened with the receptionist, and I told her about my positive findings...."of course you should come in" she said!!
So the take home message is to stand up for yourself, and push for what you believe is right and what you need!!! Don't back down without a fight!!!!
I am writing this 5 months after it happened, the surgeon has gotten one surgery from me and has another one coming in 5 weeks...I wonder if he would agree that my case was not appropriate for his practice!!!

Its always because of the kids

Once you have kids, you always have someone to place the blame on, like when I accidentally hit the yellow pole in our garage, my husband asked me how the yellow paint got on our black car....well, the kids were yelling and I was distracted and as I was reaching back to give them crackers, bam, I hit it!!!!So, how did I injure my hip? Unfortunately for me, I don't have an exciting story, I wasn't skydiving, or skiing or even playing sports. The one thing I am sure of is that prior to this episode, I never had hip problems. I am a PT, in PT school, there are no models, anything you learn, you learn on each other, and then practice again and again on each other. So I know in PT school my hips were perfect.
My son was born in Nov 2005, he was a VBAC, immediately following his birth, I remember having hip pain, but lets be honest, after having a baby, everything else hurts too, so some hip pain was not too alarming at the time. And it disappeared, so I forgot about it.
Fast forward exactly one year later, hip pain. Weird, hip pain, in my groin, I cannot touch it, it is deep and achy, it hurts to drive, it hurts to walk, but my muscles and tendons don't hurt...hmmmm, what is going on.
A few days later, it is still there, I tell a colleague, she works on me, it felt great! She released my iliacus muscle (which killed) and did some traction on my leg, I felt great! I practically skipped to my car, I was cured....Until later that night, I felt worse.
What could be happening??? I decided to try some hip tests on myself, which is awkward, but I was not ready to admit to anyone else I was having a problem, and being the control freak that I am, I did not want any surprises and was not going to let someone else diagnose me before I had already decided what was wrong.
Hmmmm...positive, positive, positive. Now what?
The next day I was worse, so I had 2 other collegues work on me, again, I felt better immediately after, but worse later on.
I needed a better game plan, so I decided to try strengthening as well. Bad idea! Exercise was making me worse as well.
Where would I turn now? As a PT, I was not ready to throw in the towel, but there was honestly nothing I could do to help myself, it was time to find a surgeon who could help me.

In the beginning.....

As a service to myself, as well as to fellow hip pain sufferers (OK, mostly to myself, as my husband is absolutely sick of hearing about my hip), I have decided to start this blog about my journey through arthroscopic hip surgery.
My journey began in Nov 2006 and began with hip pain. I will later give details of the first few months and what led up to my first surgery, too bad I hadn't thought about blogging then!!
I have since had a hip scope on March 5 2007 and am scheduled for a second one for the other side July 2 2007.
There is so little info out there on hip scopes and the recovery/ rehab, so I thought I would share my experience for all those interested.
Just a warning....I talk a lot, so be prepared for some long posts. But I hope I can help other's preparing for this, thinking about this, or going through this as well.