Sunday, October 21, 2012

What is FAI and how does it cause pain?

So, in my last post I just gave a lot of information on my situation, but I did not really explain what FAI is and how it creates pain.  There are two kinds of impingements that you can have, a cam impingement, which is extra bone on the femur head, and a pincer impingement, which is extra bone on the acetabulum.  This website has some very clear diagrams of what these two types of impingements are: http://www.hipfai.com/.

I have been diagnosed with both cam and pincer impingements.  This is most common, that people have some form of mixed impingements.  Often times this impingement causes the labrum (the cartilage that surrounds the hip socket and creates suction to keep it stable) to tear and shred as it moves.  Some people have tears of the labrum without FAI and often this is caused by trauma of some kind (ex: car accident).  There is a lot more technical terms and such that go into FAI and I am no doctor, so this explanation is very much in layman's terms.

Currently I am waiting for my third surgery, as I said before.  In the mean time I just have to wait and find ways to live with the pain day to day.  Some days are better than others and I just never really know what I am going to get.  I often have a hard time sleeping and getting comfortable.  I have lots of pain during the day when sitting at work and school so I have to be aware of it and get up and walk often.  The pain that I get is mostly in the groin area that then goes down into my knee.  Then I will get sharp pains deep in my bum.  The hardest part is the inability to know how much you can or cannot do.  For me, my hip will randomly become very painful, to the point that I cannot walk and it feels as if my hip is stuck.  Usually after a few minutes it becomes unstuck and less painful, but its a very scary feeling of being unable to walk and in intense pain.

I am seeing a pain clinic to help me manage the pain until surgery.  I am, as well, attending physical therapy.  Its a difficult trade off because often the meds that I am given to help with the pain, help to a certain point, but they also have side effects that make me drowsy and unable to concentrate.  School has been difficult and I am thinking about not attending next semester as being in daily pain makes it hard to concentrate.  I also do not want to put myself in a position where I know I would be disappointed with my performance.

So today is Sunday and I was able to get a few household chores done before the pain got to be too much.  I hate the feeling of being useless so just being able to do something was nice.  Adam is sick too, so I am trying to help him as much as possible.  So we are just relaxing and watching football today :)  Since I have a lot of down time, I have also been looking at places to stay in Vail for surgery.  Its a beautiful place, at least we will have a nice view while we are there :)  Have a good day!

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