Coming off Crutches

So I have been hesitant to write an update these past few weeks because coming off crutches for me has been extremely difficult.  I have never had such issues getting off crutches with all of my scopes, but I have to keep reminding myself that this surgery is nothing like a scope surgery.  I have yet to be able to see my surgeon for a follow up because of life events as well as the weather (norther Michigan in the winter, not fun).  But hopefully in April that will happen.  I thought that my strength would easily come back to my hip within a week or so of walking with just one crutch, but it has taken about 3 weeks of walking with one crutch to finally get to a point where I can walk without any aid around the house.  Outside of the house I am still using one crutch though.  It does not help that with spring on its way, everything outside is a sheet of ice.  I cannot wait for summer though.  Swimming and walking I think will help improve my overall demeanor and spirits.

I am still participating in PT, although I am only doing about 2 times a week.  Its been very helpful though in making me feel like I can start doing things.  I was able to pick up our apartment and do some household chores that I had not previously been able to, so there is definitely improvement in my everyday life.  I still am struggling with pain and limited ROM though.  I get intense pain very deep in my glutes as well as my knee, which constantly feels swollen and stiff with acute pain that wakes me up most nights.  I also have intense hip flexor pain and still cannot lift my leg up without intense pain in the front of my hip.  The combination of these things has been very frustrating for me and I feel like its holding be back from a 'normal' recovery.  I still have the lingering issue of my femoral anteversion which I think is playing a large part in my knee pain and hip flexor pain.  I expect at my next appointment for Dr. Buly to talk about femoral osteotomy surgery, which is a big bummer considering this was suppose to be the end of the right hip surgeries.  But I also knew that this was a possibility, so I just have to keep moving forward.

The nice part about moving back "home" to be with family is that my husband and I have a lot of support to help me get to and from PT, doctor appointments and also help provide me with some entertainment at times.  On Friday I got to attend a talent show that my younger sisters school was hosting and tomorrow is my Grandpa's birthday so we are all getting together for dinner.  I don't think that I could have done this surgery without having moved back home, as hard as it was, I am very thankful for all of the help and support that me and my husband have here.

So I guess overall, not much of an update.  Things keep plugging along.  It seems that within the next week or so I should be able to get off crutches completely, which its certainly about time, seeing as this week I am 4 and a half months post op!!  I thought that at this point I would be much further along in my recovery, but all I can do is take things one day at a time and hope that spring is right around the corner :)

6 Weeks post op PAO

Hey Everyone, so this past Thursday I was 6 weeks post op.  It seems crazy that its been that long, but here was are!  Excuse me if this post is cynical, after 4 right hip surgeries and 6 weeks on crutches. my ability to stay positive all the time is waning a bit.  So, not much has changed in the past 2 weeks, I still have a good amount of pain, still taking pain meds regularly.  I got to stop taking my asprin for blood clots though, so thats good, one less thing to take.  I had an unplanned hiatus from PT because of the holidays and one day I was not feeling well, so it was about 2 weeks between appointments.  On Friday though I had a reevaluation and it made me realize that there are some things that have gotten a lot better since surgery.  On Tuesday I get to start in the pool. which I am super excited about!  I think that it will really help me with my confidence about getting off crutches.  I am not suppose to get off crutches until I am cleared by x-ray, which should happen later this week.  I am nervous about it though cause most of the time my leg does not feel ready to take on more weight as of yet, so I guess we will see what the xray says.  This is all so different than my scopes, but because bones were broken this time, obviously we have to make sure they are healed before adding weight.  It seems like by 12 weeks most people are off crutches so I am about halfway there!!  As much as I want to just be done with the crutches,. I know that my hip is just not ready yet.  I have been able to lay on my operated side again, which feels soooo good.  I am a side sleeper so this has made my nights much more bearable.

My left hip has been acting up more and more though which is frustrating.  I know that eventually I will need surgery to fix the impingement and labral tear, but its so hard to imagine needing more surgery at this point.  My other fear though it that this PAO has opened up the proverbial 'can of worms' regarding my malalignment issues and that eventually I will need a femoral osteotomy and a possible tibial osteotomy before things will be correct.  But at the same time, worrying about these things will do no good, so I just keep trying to concentrate on whats in front of me.  I hope that this PAO at least gives me the opportunity to start working again.  I miss it greatly.

So later this week I will know a little more about my weight bearing status.  On the personal front, my husband and I have moved into our new apartment in our home town (about 8 hours from where we were living).  I am enjoying having a smaller space to get around and clean!  We went from a 3 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom apartment!  As much as I loved our house up north, trying to clean and do housework in such a large place was just awful on my hips.  Its odd how these hips have effected so much of my life.  I am enjoying being close to my family though (yet not living with them haha).

4 weeks post op RPAO!

Well, today is 4 weeks post op.  I kind of thought that at this point I would be further along in my healing process I guess.  Compared to my scope around this point in time, I am still getting a lot of pain, which is frustrating.  I have pain when standing and walking almost all of the time.  Usually in my hip flexors, groin and deep in my glutes.  I still have at least another 2 weeks on crutches at 20% weight bearing and then most likely I can work on weaning off of them.  I have been doing PT 2-3 times a week and thats been going well.  I can definitely see progress, its just all a lot slower than I anticipated.

And of course, because my life is not interesting enough with surgery, finally there has been movement on the adoption of the 3 foster kids my parents have.  The adoption petition was filed last week and is set for finalization in Feb.  Our family is beyond elated and we could not have asked for a better Christmas present!  As well, my husband and I are moving back to our home town.  So in the next few week and months we have a lot of personal things happening which are exciting, not to mention the prospect of getting of crutches soon!!

Two Weeks post op

Hey Everyone!

So in a few hours I will be 2 weeks post op.  It seems odd that I am so far out from surgery in some ways as I am still stiff and sore, but in other ways I see how much I have improved.  The two days I was in the hospital I could barley push myself upright!  Now, I move in and out of bed pretty well, I can lay on my non-operated side for a bit as well as my stomach.  It feels sooo good to be able to move around a little bit.  I had my first physical therapy appointment yesterday and that went well.  The PT just covered basic stuff like ROM, health questions, etc. and then gave me some isometric exercises to do.

Other than PT, I do not do much.  I do the basic after surgery, at home alone, protocol, which is watching Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond (who does not love the classic sitcoms!), as well as some reading and keeping people updated on my surgery.  So far the pain is not too bad, although the last day or so has been worse than normal, but even these 'bad' times are manageable.  I got my surgery report and I got 5 screws put in.  Dr. Buly was able to change my anterior central edge (CE) angle from 11 degrees (normal is 25-40 degrees) to 37 degrees!  I was lacking a LOT of anterior coverage, so hopefully thats all fixed now.  Other than that, the surgery report did not say much other than they had a hard time getting my socket loose to move it, but after some extensive cutting, it came loose.

So I just wanted to do a quick update.  Things are going well and pain is well controlled.  I should be getting a CD with my images from the hospital soon and once I do I will post before and after pictures of my hips.  Hope everyone else is pain free and enjoying some nice winter weather (ie, snow!).

Edit:
So yesterday I got my CD from HSS with my images, so here is my post op x-ray

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.

10 weeks - Hope

On Monday I will be 10 weeks post op.  Its really hard to believe considering originally I was not suppose to even have surgery until this month (April).  The past two weeks have been amazing!  My hip feels so good, I don't even have words to express how excited I am.  This week I walked my dog, about 1/4 of a mile, 4 times, as well as climbing some snow banks out at Lake Superior to watch the stars.  The snow was giving out underneath my leg as I was walking and I had no pain!  Plus the physical therapy that I have been doing has stepped up intensity each time we are adding strengthening exercises without any pain!  I have not had this happen in years.  This week we even added wall squats!  Full wall squats!  Its crazy how wonderful it feels.  I feel like I actually have hope for the future, something that I have not felt in a long time.

I am so grateful to Dr. Philippon.  I really believe that he is the best surgeon in the world to do these kinds of things.  Without him and his team, I know that I would still be feeling helpless and frustrated.  I read stories of other people struggling with the same things I was (continued pain, frustration, etc.) and I just want to recommend to everyone to see Dr. P.  After years of struggling with this and seeing many different doctors, the best advice I give everyone I talk to is to get a lot of opinions from at least one local doctor (if available) and an opinion form one of the top doctors (of course its my personal opinion that Dr. P is the best).  Checking out who your doctor trained with is another really important thing.  Before I had a first hip surgery failure I thought that I would not be one of those who had to have multiple surgeries, that those things happened to other people, but this whole experience has been very humbling and taught me a lot about hips. There are a lot of underlying factors that go into whether someone is a good candidate for a scope surgery and many untrained doctors do not know how to look for these things.  Looking back on my experience, I wish no one would ever have surgery with a surgeon who has not trained under the best doctors in the world as it seems their success rates are much, much less and people suffer needlessly.

So this week the only downside that I have been experiencing is that my left hip has really started to increase in pain.  Its bothered me on and off ever since after my first surgery in 2010 but was brushed off by the surgeon as compensation pain.  With my second MRA I was diagnosed with a CAM impingement on the left, but I was hoping that once the right was fixed that it would become asymptomatic again.  So far, no luck with that, but I really don't want to think about the possibility of needing another surgery, so unless it really starts effecting my every day activity, I most likely will not pursue anything with it.

Thats the deal this week :)  Feeling really great about life and the hip situation.  I feel like my fears of needing the surgery to fix my anteversion are reduced daily and that this might be the end of the road for the hip pain in the right.  Thanks for reading!

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.

5 weeks post op

So today I am 5 weeks post op.  Last week was really hard, I was having increasing pain with each day that passed and I was trying to work myself off of crutches.  I felt like I was falling behind in my rehab as even the basic PT exercises were becoming more difficult instead of easier.  BUT...on Friday, I woke up and felt a ton better, I was able to do my therapy exercises in the morning without any trouble at all.  I was so happy and surprised!  It finally felt amazing!  So for the past few days I have been continually feeling better and better, doing my therapy exercises 2 times a day without any issues.  Yesterday and today I walked without crutches at all, all day.  My back today is sore though as I am twisting my pelvis as I have a slight limp, so I am working a lot harder at stabilizing my pelvis with my core, which means I really have to think about every step I take, but it will be worth it as my leg needs this to get stronger.  I also went to the pool today for the first time.  It felt good, albeit different.  I didn't realize how much and quickly I adapted to the feeling of walking in the water without so much weight on my hips until I got out of the pool and the limp was back.  So I think I am going to try and get to the pool on the days that I am not in PT.

In PT I have been working on a few new things, like external rotation, which feels weird as my capsule is really tight, but each day, my range of motion gets better and better and its always nice to see results!  I have started doing abduction exercises with my left leg, which means I have to stand on my right (operated leg) to start some more strengthening.  I was really afraid to do these exercises but they turned out ok, as I did not fall over!  We have also upped the resistance on the bike, so I feel like I am getting a slight cardio workout, which is something new.  In the pool I can start doing some aqua jogging and laps, as well as the normal exercises which just use the resistance of the water to help strengthen.

My pain has been minimal the past 3 days or so, after I got over the awful flare up that I had.  I am already on less drugs than I was before, which is promising!  I am suppose to have a follow up appointment with Dr. Philippon on March 11th, but I have some family issues that need attending too so I will be cancelling this appointment and rescheduling.  I also want to push it out a little so that I can try and fly out there myself and save some money on plane tickets as its starting to get a little too pricey flying out there every 6 weeks!  So, thats about all for now.  This week in PT we will be adding some new exercises, so we will see how the hip does without crutches and some more strengthening!  Each week brings something new, its exciting to see the changes happening!!

Stay pain free and have a great week everyone!!