hip news

Hello! Because this blog is combination of my story and hip surgery here's a little note of what's going on with my hips right now. We saw my hip surgeon today who is sports medicine and did my arthroscopy last December. He was happy that I am crutchless at the moment (yay!) but this new pain in my left hip I've been having is making everyone confused. He determined that I have multiple "pain generators" including my iliotibial band (ITB) and something that's causing deep groin pain, pressure and the occasional locking or catching. My ITB has thickened  and snaps over my trochanter (the bone you feel on the side of your hip) The ITB runs over the trochanter and should glide smoothly, however when it thickens it snaps over the trochanter instead which can also cause knee pain because the ITB connects on the side of the knee. In order to diagnose what's exactly causing my pain I need to have a series of steroid injections. Though the screws from my open surgeries have been removed, my metal anchors holding my labrum together say in my hip for good. This means I can have an MRI but it won't be very much use because the metal of the anchors will cause artifact (blurriness). So, instead I am going to have steroid injections as soon as possible in both my ITB and inside my hip joint. If my pain completely goes away we leave it at that, if not, the same injections will be repeated. If that doesn't help either my surgeon will come up with a plan most likely involving a ITB release and possibly another arthroscopy. Fingers crossed that we get this on the first try!