If its not one thing, its another!

Today is 11 weeks post op!  I am in shock how fast the time has gone.  Physical therapy is still going well even though I have not been able to attend as much as I would like.  Recently my stomach pains have become the real issue, preventing me from going to physical therapy as much as I should.  Last week I was only able to attend one day.  But during that one session we really pushed the hip hard.  I did lounges on the treadmill for 2 whole minutes!  I thought that I was going to die!  I am doing 3 sets of 10 of lounges on the ground with 2lb weights as well as side leg lifts and back leg lifts.  Its crazy how much I can do and the progress that I can feel.  But I can also still feel a lot of weakness.  My pain has been minimal for the past 3 weeks, which is really promising considering I cannot take any NSAID's.  I still have numbness along the outside of my thigh and under my knee cap.  My scars seem to be healing up well, but I can feel a lot of scar tissue underneath my outer most scar.  I have been using Vit. E oil on them and massage to break it up.

My stomach on the other hand seems to have a mind of its own.  I have been taking Prilosec now for 2 weeks at the increased does yet on Thursday I had horrible stomach pains again.  Is a combination of nausea and actual physical pain.  I am not sure if anything sets it off in particular but it usually starts in the evening after having dinner.  I have tried taking Pepto and Tums but both of those usually just make things worse.  I was in pain for about 6 hours until some pain medication I took finally kicked in.  Friday was not much better, although I was able to sleep a little more.  I had a low grade fever all day which had me worried.  I called my doctor but he was out of town and the fill in doctor only suggested that if the pain got worse I got to the walk-in or ER.  Well Friday night the pain got worse so I went to the ER.  They were not able to do much for me, they basically just suggested that I call my primary care doctor about setting up an appointment for a scope of my stomach.  They were able to prescribe some antibiotics in case it is an infection, plus some pain pills to take when the pain gets really bad.  So for the past few days I have just eaten toast and drank water because of the nausea.

So overall, the hip is feeling really good, minus some aches and pain here and there but this stomach thing has really put a damper on my progress.  On Wed. I have a follow up appointment with my doctor regarding the stomach issues so hopefully then we can come up with a game plan for the next step.

9 weeks!

So today is 9 weeks post op!  Its crazy to think about how far out from surgery I am now.  This past week I have been feeling better and better each day.  My pain has been minimal and my range of motion is better as well.  On Saturday I walked my dog with no problems and no pain (other than I slipped and fell in my driveway, luckily nothing serious!).  I am very excited about all this!  But of course when one thing is going well, something else falls apart.  I have been experiencing intense stomach pains for a few months now and on Saturday night my stomach started giving me intense stomach pains.  It was horrible.  Nothing was taking the pain away.  So today I made an appointment with my primary care physician to see if he could help me figure out what the problem was.  I had a feeling that it was an ulcer because of my high use of NSAID's for the past few years.  So today I went to see my doctor and the end result is that tomorrow at 8 am I have an appointment at the hospital for an ultrasound of my stomach area as well as blood work.  The doctor is concerned that I may have a gallstone as when he did the physical exam on me, I was really tender more toward my gallbladder than anything else.  So, worst case scenario  I need my gallbladder removed, best case scenario, I have an ulcer and will be taking lots of Prilosec!  I have had to stop all NSAID's though, which in the past few days has made my hip ache a little more and give me bad headaches.

Physical therapy has really picked thing up a lot this past week.  I started doing the elliptical, which has felt good as well as adding some 2 lb weights to some of the exercises that I had been doing that have gotten pretty easy for me.  It feels good to start strengthening things and see some progress and things get easier and easier with each physical therapy appointment.  The best part is the pain afterwards has been minimal (except in the past few days, when I have had to stop taking NSAID's).

Hope everyone else is doing well and pain free :)

EDIT (3/28/13):  So I wanted to edit this to update the results of my ultrasound and blood work.  Everything came back normal so the likely culprit of my intense stomach pains is an ulcer.  I am on Prilosec, 40 mg's for 2 weeks and then I go back to the doctor to reevaluate to see if its working.  Its really early in the morning here but I cannot sleep because of my stomach pains so I hope that this regimen of Prilosec works fast!  Most likely the ulcer is from my NSAID use all these years in dealing with the hip problems.  I was taking about 600 mg every 4-6 hours for about 2 years straight so its no wonder I developed an ulcer.  I would recommend talking to your primary care physician if you have been or will be on NSAID's for any long length of time and see if you can get one a Prilosec as preventative measures for ulcers.