My surgeon follows a specific protocol. Hip pain -> MRI -> trial of PT -> diagnostic injection -> surgery. The injection can be a scary sounding thing. They inject a numbing agent (marcaine) into the joint, followed by some steroids (kenalog and cortisone), if you get relief, your pain is indeed coming from the labral tear in your hip. My doctor tried to reassure me by saying he sends all his patients to one particular radiologist, he is "the best", he has heard horror stories of other radiologists, but never from a patient using this guy.
So I sucked it up and went to have it done. The radiology tech was excellent, he was very reassuring and helped calm me down. After I had changed, he took me to the room where the injection would be done, "Dr. X will be in soon"....wait a second, that's not who I was supposed to have....ok, stay calm, he must be just as good, right??? Turns out he was a fellow...oh no, how many of these could he have done?
He was AMAZING!!! Ok, yes, he did stick a gigantic needle into my hip, but I barely felt it, and he spoke to me the whole time, kept me calm, and best of all...it worked!!
I did put a lot of pressure on him! I said I have to be in good shape for next week, I am taking my kids to Disney World! He finished injecting everything, I stood up, and I had no pain, zero!!!! Wow!! I practically skipped home! I was so happy to finally not have pain!
About 3 or 4 hours later, the numbing agent wore off, pain again, but it did not return to the baseline level of pain I was having pre-injection, it kept going up and up... This was not good! That night, I experienced pain like I never had before, Now I was getting scared, how would I manage in Disney like this?
Luckily, the next morning, the pain had gone away and I was back to being painfree!!
The injection worked so well in fact, that my my plan for avoiding surgery on the second side was to just have it constantly injected! My surgeon was not in favor :-(
He said the steroids would cause too much damage over time!!! So I write this 3 weeks before my second surgery is scheduled!
Disney World was great! I walked non-stop for 3 days!!
So I sucked it up and went to have it done. The radiology tech was excellent, he was very reassuring and helped calm me down. After I had changed, he took me to the room where the injection would be done, "Dr. X will be in soon"....wait a second, that's not who I was supposed to have....ok, stay calm, he must be just as good, right??? Turns out he was a fellow...oh no, how many of these could he have done?
He was AMAZING!!! Ok, yes, he did stick a gigantic needle into my hip, but I barely felt it, and he spoke to me the whole time, kept me calm, and best of all...it worked!!
I did put a lot of pressure on him! I said I have to be in good shape for next week, I am taking my kids to Disney World! He finished injecting everything, I stood up, and I had no pain, zero!!!! Wow!! I practically skipped home! I was so happy to finally not have pain!
About 3 or 4 hours later, the numbing agent wore off, pain again, but it did not return to the baseline level of pain I was having pre-injection, it kept going up and up... This was not good! That night, I experienced pain like I never had before, Now I was getting scared, how would I manage in Disney like this?
Luckily, the next morning, the pain had gone away and I was back to being painfree!!
The injection worked so well in fact, that my my plan for avoiding surgery on the second side was to just have it constantly injected! My surgeon was not in favor :-(
He said the steroids would cause too much damage over time!!! So I write this 3 weeks before my second surgery is scheduled!
Disney World was great! I walked non-stop for 3 days!!
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