Anyone had hip surgery?

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they may not be needed, they are the new buzz word these days (at least new to me)
everyone is wearing compression everything to increase blood flow, so i figure it can't hurt
your doctor may not care either way, or might advise against them... i'm not a doctor, just thought they might help

the @ chester tag, will tag someone and send a notification to them that they were tagged
but you have to use the correct username for the "tag" to work properly
i dont get it myself, but i have been tagged in a thread and it helped me notice it
@totalburnout
 
Thanks for the update. I am actually going in on the 24th. I have my Pre-Op appt. next Tuesday. Right now I am just busily trying to get all my shit done so the sub teacher doesn't screw up my curriculum while I am gone. I have read some posts online about items that made being laid up easier. Have any suggestions? Right now I am looking at a long handled luffe (sp?) for bathing and some warm socks.

Also just curious - what are your rehab appts like?

Something to put your socks on, like a claw type thing, will definitely make things easier. Socks and shoes were the biggest struggle. Thankfully I have a significant other that was around to help me, if there was something that I couldn't do. Although I didn't need help very often, I also was not above asking for help. My buddy came to pick me up when my fiance was out of town and I was not allowed to be driving - I warned him that he might need to help me put on my right sock and shoe. Thankfully I was able to put on a shorter pair of socks and squeeze my feet into shoes. He did have to tie my shoe once and all the women at our gym got a good laugh out of it.

Other than that, I was doing a lot more than the doctor prescribed. I drove much sooner than he said I could in the beginning, I was off crutches early, I'm breaking 90 degrees when I wasn't supposed to be there yet - all those sort of things made it much easier to cope.

As far as Physical Therapy and what I do while I am there... I was given quite a few isolation exercises to work on and a handful of stretches. Most are performed with little to no resistance in the beginning and then gradually move to resistance bands or weights. We just sort of hopped right into the resistance bands for myself. I just did ankle weights for the first time yesterday. We are way ahead of the doctor's rehab protocol and without being arrogant - I kind of run my own PT but with input from the therapist. In recent years, I have only been training 'functional' exercise movements and not isolation movements - but earlier in life, I performed those sort of movements and I am well read on most of the stuff. The therapist starts pulling things out to set me up for an exercise and then starts explaining it and I just sort of hop on or do whatever he's about to describe because I know where he is heading with the concepts. He has definitely provided me with different takes on movements from what I would have done but in all honesty, the greatest help that he has offered is answering my questions and being a sounding board to reconfirm that I am not screwing things up. I have no personal experience with having been operated on, so although I know the movements, how to teach them, warning signs and those sort of things, before this, I did not know how those movements actually felt for someone who has been through surgery. So he's helpful when I am pushing myself further than the doctor's protocol to ask him things and say, hey, am I nuts here or is this okay? I took it upon myself to turn the standard 10 minute recumbent bike warm up into 10 minutes of interval training.

For instance, yesterday I asked him where the actual protocol said I was supposed to be at this point since I have basically thrown it away and abandoned it. He looked the file over and said oh, well you aren't supposed to be breaking 90 degrees yet, so we'll work up to that. Then he said wait a minute, you were just going past 90 degrees. I said yeah, last friday I grabbed a 26lb kettlebell and did a goblet squat past 90 degrees and I was going past 90 when we were doing stabilization squats on a bosu ball. So in reality, I am not supposed to break 90 until after week 6. I was breaking 90 by the end of week 3. The second phase goes to week 6-10. I can do all things there but walk with a normal gait.

Long story short, your PT will have you do exercises to strengthen your core muscles (including pelvis, hip, thigh) that involve adduction, abduction, flexion, extension, internal rotation and external rotation. You'll have to be able to demonstrate that you can move in all of those planes of motion without pain before they consider you recovered. There will also have to be adequate time for the bone to heal if they're doing any sort of work on your bone and time for the issue/ligaments to heal for any surgery to the soft tissue. While you regain all of that function, you'll get back to normal walking. Right now I still sort of shuffle at times because the muscles in my groin have shortened which make my stride shorter and my leg turnover is not as quick as it should be because the muscles (mainly hip flexor) aren't as strong as before.

Last note - I have learned that the hip labrum is significantly different than the shoulder labrum. Because of the location and function of the shoulder labrum, it is a much more difficult surgery and is much more responsible for holding your shoulder in its socket. The hip labrum is more about creating a seal for the hip in the socket, but there's enough bone and musculature (in the shoulder, there's very little bone to hold things in - just 2 points and the rest is all muscle) to keep everything from dislocating.
 
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My second surgery will be a week or two after your surgery. I'll have to see if my recovery time can beat yours. :)
 
@reckedracing The compression is not necessarily a bad idea. Diabetics have specialized shoes to help with circulation to their extremities. Compression also helps to reduce swelling but personally, I would stay away from it, if you were not sure what you were doing. I.e., I didn't use ice, take anti inflammatories, painkillers, blood thinners or stool softeners - all of which the doctor recommended. I am just very against the side effects of popping pills versus their perceived benefits. By not taking the pain killers and anti inflammatories, I was in more pain, but the inflammation and pain signals are what actually stimulate the healing process in your body. When you dull those things with pain killers or anti inflammatories, it essentially dulls that signal and slows that process. Same with ice. In my case, compression could have helped to naturally reduce some inflammation and probably would have sped healing up slightly - had I thought of it. I went the other direction and went on a low inflammation diet, used fish oil, vit d3, vit c, and collagen protein powder to naturally handle all of those things that the doctor was writing a script for in the first place.

Its a personal choice. I would not condemn anyone for taking a doctor's prescription but I would challenge them to research if those drugs are really being prescribed because they are needed or because its easiest way for a doctor not to divert from generally accepted protocol and get sued.
 
So I'm home resting comfortably. The surgeon ended up using three anchors to repair the labrum. He shaved almost 5/16 of the femoral head and smoothed out the acetabulum and also cleaned up the cartilage. Now its time for 4-6 hours of icing and cpm machine. The pain is not that bad but I assuming that's due to the two Percocet im on every 4 hours.
 
That's what the wife relayed to me from the surgeon. I am sure I will get the details at my follow-up. I do
know that there was quite a bit of bone growth on the femoral head. He had to reshape from convex to concave.
 
FWIW, to be a braggarts - six week post surgery I was repping deadlifts in the 300's. I pulled up to 345lbs which is a little more than 100lbs less than my max pre-surgery.

I have no pain except when I took a very long lunge forward and up (like climbing 4 steps in one stride) or when I am down into a full lunge. I am still weak in a crouch/squat. Can't generate the same amount of torque to hold myself steady.

Did you have your follow up yet to figure out what exactly they did and what your rehab is supposed to look like? I was going to offer you my brace but I should've gotten it to you before the surgery. Sort of pointless now.
 
The doc said that he took roughly 6mm off the femoral head, added three anchors to the labrum and sewed it back together with stitches. While he was in there he also smoothed out the acetabulum and cleaned up some cartilage that was rough. He was concerned about some areas that were pretty worn and that it might lead to arthritis and a replacement later on in life but we will see.

As for rehab - my guy is pretty serious. I am limited to no moving the joint past 90* until at least my appt. with him a week from today. I am on crutches with toe touch pressure only. He is still saying that I cannot drive until week four which may be the one protocol rule I am going to break. I actually emailed him today to see if I can get the whole PT protocol so I know what I am in for. At my first PT appt. the only issue she had was with my lack of hamstring flexibility but apparently it is normal especially since I wasn't able to be active the months before the surgery. I asked about when I can return to more physical activity and sports and was told that I could start to use a stationary bike this week but to start off slow with no resistance. Sports are still looking like July before I can be cleared.

All and all I am doing pretty well. I can't believe you are already squatting weight again with little pain. That is awesome. Some things that were surprising to me was how weak my leg was after surgery, the effectiveness of the cpm machine and how awesome the ice pump was. If you didn't have the cpm or the ice machine for your first surgery I would recommend looking into getting them even if you have to pay out of pocket. The CPM machine was a life saver. I actually got home from the surgery center and instantly got into it and basically stayed in it for the first three days including sleeping. The ice machine was the same way. I had my wife fill it up every 8 hours or so and left it running and strapped to my hip for almost the entire first week. It has a temp control so you can control how icy it gets. I had very little swelling and no bruising and I am thinking it was due to those machines. Thanks for the thought of the brace but I don't think I would have needed it.
 
That's the same protocol I was given. Mine was actually no breaking 90 degrees for the first 6-8 weeks. That went out the window when they saw I could perform the movement without pain. I was told no driving for 2 weeks then when I was under, the wife was told no driving for 4 weeks. After my follow up @ 10 days - the doctor said I could drive whenever the physical therapist cleared me. It was clearly for BS liability reasons - which I understand as an insurance geek.

Sounds like we were both on a pretty cookie cutter protocol.

When I told my guy I could run and jump rope without pain @ 4 or 5 weeks - he just said ok.
 
Welp if you were near Jersey, I would steal your CPM machine if you didn't need it. :p My second surgery is now 4/11. I am sure it would help.
 
Alright time for a more in depth update. After PT today the therapist was pleased that I am maxed out in range of motion and flexibility in respect to the recovery protocol. I can't start pushing anything new until week four. I am stoked as I am no longer restricted from driving and I can get back to school on Tuesday. Next hurdle is to get off these damn crutches!

I am still restricted to no more than 90* bending and still on crutches with toe touch only but the PT gave me some more insight as to why the doc is so conservative on this protocol. Apparently there is some literature/cases including some of his own patients where they were feeling fine at 2 weeks and then had set backs at weeks 4-5. I am really hoping that if I take it easy and not push too much I can accelerate the timeline while still not putting my labrum repair at risk. According to the PT since it is cartilage it has less blood flow to the area to help heal and needs to be babied a little bit which I am ok with. I am thinking this might be the only difference in our protocols since from what I remember you had debridement instead of anchors like me. I am pretty stoked.
 
I had both debridement and anchors. Cleared away the crap and anchored what was left.

What they were concerned about with me is that the impact will potentially cause your stem cells to grow bone cells rather than soft tissue. Didn't want my labrum to ossify again.
 
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