Born: June 9, 1972
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September 07, 2007 at 07:51 am
When hip goes square...
For the last four months, I’ve been having some pretty severe hip pain in my left hip joint. I’ve jokingly called it my “bum hip” on many occasions and…it might turn out that I was more right than I thought.
I went to my doctor and his first thought was that I had a strained hip flexor (a common sports injury — and, I had been playing kickball when all of this began). My first course of action was to do some stretching and some physical therapy exercises. Not only did the stretching not help, but it tended to make my hip hurt more. So, I would heat and ice it to no avail.
Second, I decided to go to a chiropractor (who I thought was an acupuncturist, but that’s another, longer story). I really wanted to go the natural route, rather than head to my local orthopaedic surgeon and I highly regard chiropracty and acupuncture as viable medical avenues. Anyway, he took some X-rays and didn’t see anything abnormal, so he had me continue with some exercises and I went in for a few adjustments. But, honestly, I was getting that great of a feeling about the guy and he wanted me to come in every morning for an indeterminate duration… I just couldn’t afford it!
Next, I went to a (real) acupuncturist who I ended up really liking. He was a good guy, who used to be an MD. He was knowledgable and patient. I made several visits and even had some positive reponse to the therapy. But, when I looked back at all of the times that my sessions had actually helped, I realized that the benefits (in this case) were few. And, it was starting to get pretty pricey as well.
Yesterday, becuase four months worth of intense hip pain (there were days where I could barely walk) I finally bit the bullet and visited an orthopod. Some new X-rays were taken. Afterward, I was taken to the doctor who had a somber look on his face. He showed me the X-rays and explained how he thought I might have Avasculur Necroses (AVN). There are only a few courses of action to take when this happens:
- “core decompression” – Where a hole is drilled into the hip and the hip joint is decompressed.
- bone grafting – similar to the first procedure, but where bone is actually inserted into the hip joint
- a full hip replacement
Sadly, the doctor thinks that my issue may have advanced enough to warrant the third option.
But, there is still hope… AVN is not easily diagnosable via an X-ray. In fact, no doctor would issue the diagnosis without first consulting an MRI scan. So, next I will have an MRI done and then we will proceed from there.
Please pray for this situation. I have had enough medical issues in my time (on of them — Factor V Leiden — may even be responsible for this potential mess), so I’d prefer that the MRI result came up negative. If they don’t, we will go from there, but I’d really appreciate your prayers.
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