some more progress to report - am now walking inside and out with no stick or crutch ! Yippee !! Happened on Friday when I took my stick with me and I just didn't need to use it.. walking is very steady with no limp and the only slight issue I've noticed is going up a slope or hill - glute muscles are pretty weak and also stopping me from climbing stairs normally - still going up with the non-op leg first then bringing the op leg up and so on.
I'm not too surprised as I had this problem after the scope and I think it's partly residual weakness from surgery 2 years ago to repair a tear to my glute muscle. Will need to do some walking on the treadmill on an incline and do hills outdoors when I can. Today I managed to walk downstairs normally though so that's progress and I know that upstairs is just going to take time.
I'm starting to be able to do things like pull up my sock on the operated leg (kind of without breaking the 90 degree rule) and put shoes/boots on without needing a long handled shoe horn and I can now (oh I waited so long for this) walk around at my normal pace without thinking twice about it. I also made it to the supermarket alone today, with a trolley and had no problems at all. To be honest I'm having to remind myself I'm only 4 1/2 weeks post op and not totally overdo it...The hip is not sore in any way at all - I just get a feeling of pulling and tightness around the wound when I do a bit too much - and I know I need to rest for a bit and keep letting it heal as it's really only the skin that's healed up to now.
Oh and I managed to get onto my bike today with a bit of a hop and a skip so I'm going to do 15-20 mins a day on that this week and see how that goes. Felt fine when I tried it out earlier and I know that this will help with the glute muscles.
The only cloud on the horizon is my right hip. Annoyingly I've had to take painkillers a couple of times for it (just Panadol but even so...:-( )as it's a bit sore on the outer edge of my hip/thigh.. which is nastily familiar as that's what happened to my left - got trochanteric bursitis and the rest is history - the right niggles a bit when I lie on it and inside the joint is a bit nippy from time to time.
I'm really really hoping it will settle down now that the left hip is taking its fair share as I'm not ready to even think about any more surgery (the story on the right is the degree of dysplasia is worse than the left = centre edge angle of 17 degree and my surgeon reckons a PAO would give me a great result and potentially mean no THR ever required). To be fair it's no more than a niggle at the moment by comparison to the pain I had pre-op on the left but it needs to settle down and go away so I can enjoy this new hip.
FAI News
6 years ago
dee why thr on one and poa on other?
ReplyDeleteHi Louisa,
ReplyDeleteleft hip had too much damage for PAO as I had 2 patches of bone on bone on both the socket and the femoral head- so realigning the socket wouldn't have resolved the problem.. hence the THR. Right hip however has been largely pain and symptom free (until recently..argh) and so Mr Witt reckons a PAO would be very successful as xrays show a good joint space (narrowing means arthritis usually) and although dysplastic he thinks that little or no damage has set in yet.
He wants to wait until about 6 months post LTHR though and see if the right settles down - I'm really hoping it does as I do not want another op in the near future.
how goes it with you ?
Dee x
Hi Dee,
ReplyDeleteWith both of my surgeries, the other hip tended to suffer for a little while. My surgeon said it was just because I was focusing on the "good" side for support. Don't worry, your R hip will feel better once your L hip has recovered and you are able to put more and more weight on your L hip. It sounds as if you are doing really well! Keep up the great work!
Vanessa xo
I don't know and If I think about it I get distressed as don't know who's opinion to trust. Schilders was supposed to be the best..
ReplyDeleteso it could all just be inflammation according to physio, but if not, the most I could face is thr, but I have little arth (great joint space about 4mm). POA seems like hell and I won't get to play with kids ever, nononono... going nuts! Want to just look the other way like when you're six!
x oh dear.. but hey you're sounding FAB, my point re THR! 96% success, the rest v shakey stats!
I know it's so frustrating.. however he probably is the best re arthroscopy but I guess you have to think about the underlying problem that caused the need for the scope (FAI) and see someone who specialises in that ? I think that's part of the problem with orthopaedics - so many specialities and sub-specialities it's hard to know what to do.
ReplyDeleteMy experience is that my local OS was very good at the scope but not at all experienced with dysplasia - so I knew I wanted someone to do the THR that treated people with dysplasia and specialised in it...but it took me a bit of time to get there.
I know what you mean about the PAO v's THR - I don't know I could face a PAO as this recovery has been so good so far by comparison. Equally though I don't know that I could face the pain of letting the joint deteriorate to a point where a THR is the next step...It is a hard call because people who've had PAO's and then need a replacement a few years later say they would still do the PAO - but I know how easy it is to have the THR...
I think the best thing I can say is that you can't settle for things as they are just now - there is a way forward and it will get better.