Hip Diagnosis

I realize that my blogging has really been lacking lately. I mean, really lacking. As in my last post was February and now it's June and a lot has happened since then.

I continued with PT February thru April hoping that it would help. But nothing changed. So finally early May I decided it was time for an MRI. So I scheduled it for a Friday afternoon and waited. On Monday, I was surprised to get a call that they wanted me to come back in because the first set of images weren't conclusive enough. So, I went back in that day and scheduled a follow-up with my primary care doctor a couple days later.

The time finally came and I was so nervous....yet excited to find out what was finally wrong.

As suspected, full thickness labral tear of the hip. Great.

I spent the next several days doing a lot of research on surgeons has hip arthroscopy to repair labral tears isn't too common. There are only a few orthopedic surgeons in the entire US that have done enough of these to have perfected the skill. I finally came across Dr. Laith Farjo of Advanced Orthropedia Specialists in Brighton, Michigan, only about an hour from where I live. I called and earliest appointment was June 13, which I didn't really like, but didn't have much choice.

Appointment day finally came and they did an x-ray that morning so the surgeon could look at that as well as the MRI I had already had.

I saw the PA, Chris, first. He did a lot of movements to see what kind of pain I got with each one. He then went over my x-ray with me and showed me that I had a bit of both types of impingements - CAM and pincer - which they could fix with bone shaving. Finally, the surgeon came in and discussed what would be done during surgery. Labral repair, femoroplasty (bone shaving to prevent tear from happening again), bursectomy (remove inflammed bursa) and IT band release (to prevent friction on the trochanteric part of the femur). I agreed and went to the front to set up surgery with the office coordinator. She said the first date she had was August 30 (almost 10 weeks  out)...I reluctantly took it and she said I was at the top of the cancellation list...and people frequently cancel. So I left the office with my fingers crossed.

Here are a few images of the procedures I will have done:

I will report back after surgery!