Hip Arthroscopy - anyone?

alf1163

Hello! I am a very active 47 yr old. I have been having left hip problems for a while now. After some tests were done a labral tear was discovered and also cartilage damage. My doctor recommend an arthroscopy. He said I will be on crutches for a month and no exercise for 4-6months. Just the thought of that stresses me out. Has anyone had this type of surgery? I would like to know about your experience with it. Or if you have the same injury/condition, I would like to know if you had any other treatment. Thanks!!

joygwen

I found this online from Cedars Sinai

"Research has shown that proper use of exercise in the recovery process speeds healing; lack of it during the early stages may result in permanent disability, however. You need to move, but use comfort as your guide.

Typically you'll be offered crutches for comfort; it's up to you how much to use them. Though you can get up and walk around immediately, you'll be encouraged to take it easy for a few days. You may be given a cooling unit to take home, which works just like ice packs around the wound. After a few days, you'll return to your doctor's office to change the bandage.

Do the land exercises you've been assigned gently, as soon as pain allows. About a week after surgery, the stitches will be removed and a day or two later, you can get in the pool with no restrictions. Take your hip through its complete range of motion, if possible. If you feel pain, work only to our level of tolerance."

The labrum tear sounds like it could lead to total hip replacement if they don't correct the damage. Other treatment options I saw were rest, anti-inflamatory meds, physical therapy, cortisone injections and this surgery. If your Dr. isn't recommending those it may be because he thinks it's too far a long to use them and the arthroscopy is the way to go. I also found places where it said 6-12 weeks was the average recovery time so the 4-6 months may be a worse case scenario.

So it sounds like you will need to take pain meds to help with it but you can walk around soon and sounds like they recommend swimming. Do you have access to a pool? That may be your best source of exercise and walking. I don't know what you do right now but you can probably ease back into it as soon as your recovery time allows. I see by your ticker that you've already lost 26 lbs towards a goal of 28. I don't know if that's your ultimate goal but you are doing great. Maybe make this a time to focus on learning how to maintain weight.

Hope this helped some,
Joy

joygwen

P.S. I just graduated from nursing school so I'm not a medical professional here and have no personal experience but it caught my eye and I'm always eager to research medical/health things and try to help find answers.

alf1163

joygwen, thank you so much for the info. I had not seen this one yet. I am basically maintaining my weight now. I am a Zumba instructor and teach 4 times a week. I also do some resistance trng on the side but havent been doing much lately. Back in 2009 I was at my highest level of fitness that I can recall. I did P90X, ChaLean Extreme twice, ran 2 half marathons and several other races. Then in Nov after my second half marathon I was just doing a trng run and I felt sharp pain in the groin area. I went to the doctor and they just gave me motrin and asked me to ice the area and rest. I had just gotten licensed to teach Zumba in October but had not started teaching yet. I rested until Jan 2010 when I started teaching my classes. Everything was fine until a few months ago when I started feeling pain again. I really dont know what to do but I dont want to end up having hip replacement surgery either. It is so difficult!!!

cvstokke

alf1163, did you have the surgery yet? i know this post is older but i searched for hip surgery and found it. i actually had this same surgery so i was wondering if you had done it?