Or Is It?????

I am starting to have my doubts again....Over the last week or two, I have been having a gradual increase in pain. Is it because the honeymoon from my vacation is wearing off, or did my cortisone injection actually help more than I thought it did, or am I just plain screwed at this point?????

My new PT continues to address issues in my thoracic spine, ribs, abdominals, which are extremely messed up. I saw her last week, she barely touched my hip and worked a lot on my ribs, which are incredibly messed up, 2 are practically stuck together. She also worked on my thoracic spine and teaching me how to breathe. When I left, my hip was killing me. I thought it was so interesting since she barely worked on it.
What I am experiencing now is an irritation inside the joint when I try to work on hip flexion. I do it in quadruped with gentle rocking, and in standing, by hip hinging. When I try these, I end up with an extremely sore and angry joint.
I am also experimenting and seeing what happens if I only work on the hip or if I only work on the back...what will the hip do. So far both irritate the hip...so I am at a complete loss.

I saw my OS last week, and he agrees with me that I should continue to work with my new PT. He told me that he is finding a different type of problem in women. He called it acetabular-femoral impingement. When someone has regular FAI, in some people, the pelvis will tilt posterior to ease the pain of the impingement, and they end up with issues in the back, like on the hamstring etc. My conclusion is that I have the opposite, I have some sort of problem in the posterior side of the joint so my pelvis is tilting anterior, in turn, all of my anterior hip muscles are "freaking out". One thing my PT is very frustrated at times with is that my pelvis remains more anterior on that side, despite trying to hard to correct it. I am wondering if this is what I am experiencing. Definitely something to discuss this week.
My OS still cannot find anything really wrong with my MRI, which is good and bad! He wants me to come back in 6 weeks, but if things are not better in 3-4 weeks, he wants me to call him. I decided to ask a stupid question, what if PT doesn't help me...then what. He said he would want to scope it, to see what is happening......NO WAY. He promised me that he feels just as strongly as I do about NOT wanting to scope this hip...but it may be the only thing left to do. So....PT needs to start working really well ASAP!

Wow, PT is working!

I have been to my new PT twice so far, but I am definitely more compliant with my exercises than I have ever been in my life. We (she) have discovered that my glutes have completely stopped working, my hip slides anteriorly, my ribs/ thoracic spine are really tight, all of my "large" hip muscles are working overtime and my smaller, stabilizing hip muscles are not working at all. Even if my ligamentum teres is torn, she thinks that by strengthening the proper muscles and getting the "wron" ones to shut off, I will regain my ROM and restore my pain free status.
One of he things I have been doing alot of is rolling on a tennis ball to release trigger points in my muscles. I am amazed at how tight and painful my quad is. It is by far the most painful muscle to roll out.
I still have pain with sitting but it is nowhere as bad as it used to be. I am definitely seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and am keeping my fingers crossed that this is what I have needed the whole time!

Taking a Different Approach

Sorry if I left you hanging! I was on vacation for 10 days and as usual, incredibly busy with life at home. The good news is that while I was on vacation, I felt great, after a few days in sunny Florida where I did absolutely nothing, my pain started to disappear. Once I got home, it slowly started to come back, which leads me to the conclusion that I should retire now!
It is not as bad as it was before I left and I can tolerate sitting which is a huge plus. But I have decided that I need to do something, and everything that I have been doing is not working, and no one that I have worked with knows how to help me, and my brain has shut off regarding this. So I found myself a new PT. I definitely feel that I am cheating on my old PT, but since I wasn't getting better, I needed to move on.
I saw my new PT yesterday. It is a totally different experience than my old PT, who ran his office similarly to the way my office runs. Chaos, patients everywhere, running around from one patient to another. My new PT only sees one patient at a time, the office reminds me of a spa, I walked in to absolute silence. A completely different experience than I have ever seen at a PT clinic. I gave her my ridiculously long hip history, which took up most of the session!!! She found a lot of dysfunction in my back, it is stiff and I don't move well. Also instability and weakness in my hips. Surprising to me, she found a lot of tightens in my upper back and she thinks that those restrictions are what is causing my hip and SHOULDER problem. I am definitely getting a bang for my buck!!! As she started releasing restrictions in my upper back, I don't think I have ever experienced such pain before. But then she re-checked my hip flexion and I had gained ROM. She then checked my abdominals and found a lot of restriction in my external obliques. She also said my rib cage was tight. So she worked on releasing restrictions there, ouch. Ounce again, my hip flexion ROM increased. It was pretty incredible, something I had never thought of.
I am going to try to see her 1x/week, I have appointments set up for the next 6 weeks. It is pretty far away and she doesn't take insurance, but I think that if she can help me, it will be priceless.
My homework is the continue to work on releasing restrictions in my abdominals, and try to expand my ribcage. Also quadruped rocking to maintain my hip flexion, and learning to breathe properly with diaphragmatic breathing.
Keep your fingers crossed that this is the solution!!!