Surgery Anniversary

Well, today is the one year anniversay from my hip surgery to repair the torn labrum.  I find myself wondering if it was worth it.  Where would I be had I not went through with it?

The surgery itself was a success according to the surgeon.  For me however, I didn’t see much improvement.  I still had severe pain in my right buttock when walking.  When I last posted I opted for accupunture.  I did 3 months of accupuncture visits and I’m happy to say it elimitated the sciatic pain.  Yea! I’ve only had a couple instances where it’s bothered me over the past few months.  That’s the good news.  The bad news, while the sciatic pain has dissapeared, pain in the side and front of my hip is now more noticable.  It was there before but the sciatic pain distracted me from noticing the aching.  Accupuncture has had no effect on the remainder of the pains.

So, here’s where I’m at.  On a daily basis, most people would never know anything is out of the ordinary.  I work at a desk and short distance walking, ie house to car, parking lot into a restaurant etc don’t seem to bother me.  Anything longer than a few blocks though and aching pain sets in, which quickly dissipates with rest, but restarts with walking.  I’ve discovered that it’s not weight barring induced.  Simply swimming and moving my legs produces the same aching.  I’ve had the occassional day or evening where it hurts constantly, enough that one can’t sleep and surmise it has to do with barometric pressure changes.  Oddly, there is still pressure sensitivity on the right side of my hip.  It still hurts if I lay on my right side for more than a few minutes and I can push on the hip and find the sore spot as well.

I’m a little over 18 months post accident and the furtherest I’ve walked is 3 miles at one time.  I’ve grown somewhat used to the reduced activity lifestyle.  The only other alternative I’m aware of at this stage is spinal nerve blocking, which I wrote about in my previous accupuncture post.  At this stage, I’ve opted not to persue it and am living with lifestyle modification.  Meaning, I avoid things that require extended walking.  No travel plans for me. 

I can still do loads of fun things.  Sailing, and climbing or crawling around the boat don’t seem to bother it at all.   Chores around the house, bending, lifting, moving around short distance don’t seem to bother it either.  Seems weird, I can do all that, yet going for a long stroll is out.

I guess I find myself at 40 feeling like what I imagined it must be like to be 80.  Haven’t had a day since the accident without some sort of pain.  It reminds of of a friends joking claims, “If I wake up and nothing hurts, I must be dead”.

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