What happened to me
Oh yeah right? “Hip problem” is sorta vague. Let me explain. The number one problem I’ve had over the last year was that it seemed like no one could diagnose my hip problem And by problem I mean a pain that originally felt like a pulled hip flexor, then it evolved to feel like a pulled groin. And then the pain got worse and worse and occurred more and more. So, over the past year I’ve seen six doctors, only two knew what was wrong with me. Those two were Dr. Marc Philippon and Dr. Michael Huang at the Steadman-Hawkins Clinic in Vail, CO. As I think I’ve mentioned before, during my visit here the first time, Dr. Huang took the time to listen to my ’story’ in detail. Based on my story coupled with two x-rays of my hip he was able to say with confidence that I had a tear in my labrum.
When I arrived here on Wednesday for pre-op, I had another MRI taken so Dr. Philippon could determine the amount of bone I would need shaved off of my femur and acetabulum. Surprisingly, he was able to point out the tear that was missing in the original MRI. So when I woke up on Thursday after surgery I got the run down of what they found, all of which was expected based on my previous discussions with Dr. Philippon and Dr. Huang. Yes, I did have a tear in my labrum and yes they did repair it. They inserted three anchors into my acetabulum (socket) and then sewed the labrum down. They also shaved down both the acetabulum and femur head to prevent another tear. Yep, that means they shaved down bone, that was in my body. It hurts. They also cleaned up some scar tissue around the ligament connecting the femur and hip socket. I think that’s called debridement.
All in all the surgery took just over three hours. I’m so happy with the results that I can’t explain it in words. And I can’t tell you how thankful I am for the teams at Steadman-Hawkins and Howard Head. I owe them big time. I think they’re going to bill me.
Filed by ryanroth at April 1st, 2007 under Life, Young & Hip