4 months post op for Left Hip

So 3rd March saw me 4 months post op for open debridement surgery on my left hip and so that means I am 2 years 3 months post op on my right.

The last 2 or 3 weeks have been up and down. Overall my hips are feeling ok, and I am back to life as normal except that I am not riding my horse, but hopefully that will change soon.

I have been having awful trouble with my upper back/thoracic spine and shoulders to the point that I have seen the GP about it. She is concerned that I have a curvature there- or scoliosis. She has sent me for an x ray and done me a referral to the musclo skeletal clinic. I will get that appointment within 12 weeks of seeing her and will get the x ray results then. They will then decide whether to send me to the pain management clinic or spinal surgeon.

I have had 2 deep tissue massage session and one acupuncture session for my upper back. Basically all my muscles across the top of my shoulders and down across my shoulder blades are horrendously tight. I feel like I have a knife stuck under my scapula. I have pins and needles across my upper back, shoulders and occasionally down into my hands. I am pretty worried about it and feeling quite low.

My hip rehab has kind of been put on hold whilst we find out what is causing this and try and make it better. I am walking plenty and going to pilates an yoga but I am finding most things quite painful & unpleasant. Even sitting here typing this I have pins and needles in my shoulder blades. All I want to do is lie in a hot bath all day but life prevents that.

I feel like a game of jenga, Just when I think I have got things stable again, hips and lower back feeling good, a different block gets knocked out and  feel like I may fall apart. But of course I wont fall apart. 12 years of chronic pain has taught me to hide my pain well. The massage therapist I have seen and acupuncturist have found it hard to  hide their surprise when they get they hands on me and feel how tight and painful I am, when on the outside I am smiley and and bouncy.

So thats where I am at the moment. Back to dragging my body through each day. I wanted 2016 to be about seeing how good I can get myslef,  but so far, my body is doing it all it can to prevent that.

12 & 13 Weeks Post Op for 2nd Hip

I hadn't realised it had been so long since my last post. A lot has happend between then and now! Last Tuesday  was my 12 weeks post op mark, the point at which I think I can now start counting in months not weeks and also the point in which I can officially go for it and see just how good I can get my body with my now fixed hips.

I have been to 5 hydrotherapy sessions which have been really great. A warm deep pool in which do simple exercises but with the support of the water. I have been pleased with how much quicker I  have progressed compared to hip #1. The range of motion is as good as, if not better than, that hip already. I seem to be having more trouble with balance when I am exercising, and I can feel the weakness of my muscle on the outside of my thigh which I think is causing that.  Whilst the Hydro sessions are great, the whole process of getting there has been pretty tiring, and some evenings, required a lot of motivation to get there. The sessions are only run from 6pm, in the evenings, and are in the middle of Bristol City, which is a 30-40 minute drive on a good day. Going to the hydro sessions at this time of year in the dark, and usually rain, battling rush hour traffic has been a bit gruelling and often takes me at least and hour to get the hospital. I then have to park my car in the multi story and get the little shuttle bus to the main building where the hydrotherapy centre is.

Since my last post at 10 weeks post op, when my physio was concerned I was not doing my exercises enough, I have put a lot of effort into them. I made my self a chart so I could record what physio exercises, how much walking and what other activities I have done each done.

I have been doing 30-40 minutes of exercises 5 mornings a week at home. Consisting of:

2 Yoga Sun Salutations
Plank for 10-20 seconds
Then, lying in my back, using the resistance band to stretch hamstrings and inner thigh muscles, 10 lots of leg raises, 10 lots of knee to chest (almost) again using the resistance band.

3 sets of 15 clam shells, single leg bridges, knee lifts (lying on front) - these exercises are specifically to help strengthen my glutes.
On the Swiss ball I have been doing pelvic tilts, single leg lifts. Standing I have been doing single leg squats (holding on to wall) and full squats using the Swiss ball between my back and wall as support.

It has all been rather boring, especially the repetition of the glute exercises, but I have stuck at it and challenged myself to just get on and do it, even when I didn't want to. And I have seen the benefits for sure. Most notably in riding my horse, which I have now done twice! Getting up into the saddle was a challenge , and the actual moment when all the weight is through my left (op) leg as I swing the other leg over is not very nice, as that is also the point that the hip must also rotate in the hip sockets and your body twists from facing the horse to being astride. But once there, it felt great, and I can feel a real difference in how my leg fall from my hip against my horses sides. I have only ridden for 5-10 minutes both times, in walk, around the schooling arena. But it felt good and the more I do it, the better things will be. I can only ride when my husband is present at the moment which is why I haven't ridden as often as I would have liked but I hope in the next few weeks I can progress to riding on my own and get a few more sessions in.

It terms of my physio sessions, which have been once a week, I haven't yet progressed to any gym equipment as my back has been a bit of an issue. I have had trouble with my lower back, as well and mid back, locking up and going into spasm. So my physio appointment for the last 4 weeks have been about keep my back going. She has done acupuncture and massage which does help. It is just frustrating that my back is actually now holding back the progress of my hip strength rehab. I hope that this week it can behave itself so that at my appointment Friday we can get in the gym.

I have an appointment on Thursday with lady that is a physiotherapist but also teaches pilates, combining the two. I did enjoy Pilates when I used to go classes so I hoping that after the initial session with her, I will be able to go and Pilates once a week.

I have been back to Yoga class! That felt like a real box ticked when I went last Thursday as I was really upset at my last one before my op as I didn't know when I would be able to make it back. I had thought maybe February so I beatt myself to it by one week! I have gone back in the beginners class since she the pace is much slower and it it is easier for me to keep up as it can take me a while to transition between poses, but I did it, with only a handful of things I can do properly yet. The main one being sitting cross legged, So I have a big support cushion wedged under my op leg knee to support it when we are doing seated poses.

What else?

I have gone back to doing much more with the horses, mucking out a few time a week as well as leading them to and from their paddocks. My husband is still going down at 6am to turn them out but I often going down later in the day to muck out etc, and then we go together when he get back from work to bring them in, exercise Charlie Brown (Misty is retired) and feed. So I am glad to back playing an active role in that.

Work wise and pretty much back full time. I have got nearly all my dog walks back from my helper which means I individually walk 2 or 3 dogs a day for half an hour. I am still using a walking pole whilst doing that but it is going well. Some days my legs do feel like jelly but my hip seems to be behaving well.

So overall, things are pretty good. I am having my good days than bad. When I do have a bad day, I tend be extremely fatigued, ache all over and generally feel like a pile of crap. But I am learning to be nicer to myself on those days and take time to have a rest and not be to despondent and the next day should be better.

Sleep is still a bit hit and miss. Most of my hip and back pain seems to come at night as soon as I lay down in bed. The ammitryptaline I take for nerve pain does usually help me get off to sleep but some nights I just cant get comfortable at all and am way till 1/2am. There is something really depressing about feeling so uncomfortable in bed, the place we are supposed to be comfortable and get rest.

Thinking about how different my two recoveries have been, I think this one has been very much a waiting game, waiting for things to heal and get stronger so that I can move on the next stage.  When I had my first hip done, I was in a bad place physically & emotionally, having dealt with back and hip pain for 10years,  my body and mind were very tired and sore. I also didn't know what to expect from surgery or recovery and what the future would hold. I was dealing with the very real possibly that if this surgery did not help me, I would be looking at not being able to work any more, and also not being able to ride my horse.

Having made it through that first recovery which was really hard due to my emotional state the weakness of my body, I did have some very good, practically pain free times, which gave me a glimpse of what life could be like I got hip 2 fixed. I also did a lot Pilates & yoga between the 2 ops,so my body was much stronger to start with when this 2nd op came around.


I think that is it for my 12/13 week update. Things are still headed in the right direction, and as I said at the start, now beings my task of seeing just how fit and strong I can make myself.

10 weeks Post op.

I shall be 10 weeks post op tomorrow (12th January 2016)

I seem to be running a rollercoaster of emotions at the moment.  On the one hand I am SUPER pleased with how well I am doing. I have ditched the crutch in the house, and now only use it if I am going to be walking more than a couple of hundred yards. My Penguin walk/limp is hardly noticeable and I have pretty much no pain in my left hip (recent op leg) at all. I get achy there, particularly on the outside of my thigh and I can still feel it is weak.

I just checked back at 10 week post op post from when I had the right one done. I am really way ahead of where I was. Back then I had only just got down to one crutch and was doing a very pronounced penguin walk without it. I also could not sand on my op leg whilst lifting the other so I am over and above where was back then. So I don't know why am feeling so glum today. 

I went to my first hydrotherapy session last Tuesday. It was a bit of a trek to get there. The pool has moved into the new hospital building at Bristol Southmead and to get there, you have to park on a multistory carpark, get the free shuttle bus to the main building then walk the length of the main building to physio/hydro. I was glad I had a crutch.  The pool was lovely and warm and deep. Exercises I did were walking up and down, knee lifts, moving leg out the side and also backwards, walking up and down a step. Very tiring but worth it.

At dry land physio on Friday, she was pleased to see I had ditched the crutch for short distances but seemed concerned I wasn't doing my exercises enough, she said I should be doing at the least the following, 3 times a day:

2 sets of 15 clam shells on each side
2 sets of 15 single leg bridges, each side,
1 sets 15 quad raises whilst lieing on front, each side.
Quad stretches
flexer stretches

Start adding exercises on the swiss ball

2 15miniute walks a day.

All of that 3 times a day seems like a lot around everything else. For the last 3 days I have managed to do the whole set of exercises twice a day, squeezing in some extra clam shells at bed time. But I am so bored with it all. Its brain numbing doing the same thing, counting reps and sets. But I know I need to do it in order to get fit enough to do all things I want and need to be doing. 

I went to see my Alexander Technique tutor today and it felt nice to get a fresh set of eyes on me. I'd not seen her since before my op. She was really pleased with me and gave me some pointers and things to think about with my gait and sit-stand technique . 

I was having a think about things as I was driving home and I think I am not actually glum. I am super pleased with how well am doing. I'm just exhausted by it all, and frankly, bored. The rotten Uk January weather does not help. I don't mean to wish my life away by any means but I think my body & mind are yearning for warmer, longer days . And also for days where my world does not revolve round thinking about my gait, my hips, my hip flexors, and my glutes!!

I always knew January was going to be tough. That would be all about putting effort and hard work into getting back to work properly in February. I just need to grit my teeth and keep on keeping on. 

   

One of the good things about our wet yet warm January, picking early daffodils for the houses 

9 weeks post op

Nine weeks today for surgery on my left hip.

I'm not having a very good week. I am getting a lot of pain in my lower back and also my right hip. My op hip actually feels ok apart from the back pain on that side. My range of motion is increasing somewhat. I can now do a few clam exercises on that side but still can’t do side lying full leg lifts. I can walk with hardly any limp for short distances around the house, but still use one crutch outside. I have driving for the last 3 weeks and did some work over Christmas and New Year, visiting and feeding cats for people whilst they are away. I also took an elderly Labrador up the motorway, a 3hr round trip and I was pleased with how my hip felt.



To be honest my right hp is really getting me down. It is giving me a lot of groin pain which is like pre-op pain.

I spent most of New Years Day on pain killers. I took 100mg tramadol which did nothing for the pain. Then 30mg codeine, still nothing, so I took another 30mg codeine and the pain did subside, but then  I woke up in the night when they had worn off and the pain was back.

I can’t get comfortable in bed. The pain in my back is awful if I lie on my front or my back. I can lie on my sides, but I have stabbing groin pain in my right hip and can’t seem to do anything to get comfy. So I am lying awake for a few hours at a time after my husband has gone to sleep, looking at the ceiling, wishing I was him. I get a few hours sleep then get woken up by the pain as I turn in my sleep.



I am feeling pretty low. I have made an enquiry to see a complimentary therapist who does all sorts of things from soft tissue release & trigger point therapy to reiki and reflexology. Never been to anything other than a physio, chiropractor on spa masseuse so I don’t know what to expect. I just need some sort of release and relaxation from this ball of pain I feel I am in.



I am going to my first hydrotherapy session tonight, which should help me increase the range of motion in my op hip. I am looking to a float in the hot water. I think my back will appreciate it.

I was going to write this before I had my operation on the 3rd November 2015. It was going to be about how hard my year had been, about how non-understanding people had been of me. About how tired and bitter I had become, but to be quite honest, I couldn't  face writing all that, I don't think there was any need to either. 

I've waited, hoping my thoughts would organise themselves and inspiration arrive to help me explain how I have felt this year  about my pain & hips. I think now, 7 weeks later , it has. so I'll start writing and see how it goes. 

Before, and between my ops , People see me walking about, driving, working, riding my horse, and think I am ok. What they don’t see is the chronic pain I have suffered for 8 years, in my back and my hips. They don’t see my pain score.  If  I wore it on my head as a  bright flashing light, then for the last 8 years, 70% of the time it would have said between 6 & 8 out of 10.  Which is pretty high. It’s the score where, if you are in hospital and they ask you to score your pain out of 10. 1 being no pain at all, 10 being the worst pain you’ve ever had. If you say 6,7,8, they will give you something like codeine or even morphine. Yet there I was, walking round with a pain score of 6-8, carrying out my life like a “normal person” Yet it wasn’t normal. Nothing about life in chronic pain is normal. I say I had those high scores "only" 70% of the time. That is because in the last two years, since I had my right hip fixed,  I have had some good days, some really good days, 30% of the last 2 years has been good. Which makes for some desperately needed relief from being 100% in the pain scores of 6-8.

Over the last few years, I have worked, I have driven, I have ridden my horse, I have done the garden, I have done the decorating, I have done the house work, the list goes on. I have done the things that normal people do. But it has hurt, every step of the way. My husband said something to me last week. He said that if I hadn’t have found out what was wrong with my hips, I could quite easily be disabled by now, unable to work. 

It really brought home to me that that was the truth. He'd never said it before, perhaps knowing that I thought it myself. But perhaps saying it earlier would have made it a reality. It was the truth, that's really how desperate things were. I can remember about 4 years ago, when I didn’t know all of this hip and back pain was due to my hips. I actually thought that I would end up in a wheel chair by the time I am 40. That is what I was truly coming to terms with in my head. It seemed no one could help me. No spinal doctors, back injections, pain clinics, chiropractors or osteopaths could solve this for me, I was accepting that I was just one of the people that had back pain. I just had to get on with it. I wonder if doctors know what goes on in someone's head when they basically say, "youre with  a high percentage of the adult population that has back pain. Live with it."  Like its normal to be in that much pain and "live with it". 

So I decided I would do all I could between now and the time I could no longer, despite the pain. So I rode my horse, in pain. I lived my life, in pain. Because what was the alternative? Sit around being miserable; mourning for things I thought I could no longer do? I decided I would haul myself through each day, and haul myself into the saddle and ride, for as long as pain would allow me too.  I decided I’d need to do all I could do to help my body through it, and thought I would benefit from some regular massage. So I went to a massage lady at our local gym. It was nice, very relaxing. But I think my tight muscles freaked her out.  She said she thought I could do with sport physio, and that another customer had been to one near Bristol. “Blue” something, she couldn’t remember the name. So I came home and Googled it. And that is how I  found Bluesky sports physio, and a wonderful lady called Donna who said she thought a lot of my  pain was actually due to impingement in my hips.

 And there have we come full circle. The story from that point on is in this blog. And I sit here now, on the 23^rd December 2015 with two hips which have matching 12inch scars from where they have been  opened up, dislocated, reshaped, and stuck back together with metal anchors and 3 screws each.....

....And I have hope at last. I have hope that the years to come will not be full of chronic pain. That my average pain score will not be 6,7,or 8. That I will be able to work, drive, ride my horse, do the garden and just live without the millstone of pain and depression around my neck.

 I even have new plans. I plan to walk up a mountain in aid of a Cerebral Palsy charity that helps my nephew.  My wonderful nephew. He is 12. He has cerebral palsy. He cannot walk, talk or feed himself and yet his smile and personality light up the room when he is there. He is determined through everything he does to make the most of what life has given him. He is my inspiration, and I can only dream of  being as strong and confident as him. I don’t know what the future is for my hips. Maybe I will get better from this recent surgery and never think about them again. Maybe the pain will return in months or years time and I will need hip replacements. Then again, maybe I won’t. But I have made a promise to myself, to make the most of what I have, and do as much as I can, whilst I still can. 

6 week post op physio session.

The day after my 6 week check with the surgeon, I had my next session with my physio, she was pleased to see me fully weight baring and I even did a no-crutch penguin waddle to see what I could do.  At 6 weeks post op with my other hip, if I'd tried to walk without crutches, I would have fallen over!! So I am already ahead of that. She showed me a couple of extra exercises I could do: 1) lieing on my front,bending heel to bum and then lifting the knee off the bed, as a quad stretch. 2) lie on back, knees bent, slide heel up and down away from/towards bum. 3) on back still , slide whole leg outwards

From hip  and back in 4) standing holding back of chair, move leg outwards/sidewards and back 

She then did some work on my lower back as I told her how stiff and painful it was. When she looked/felt my lower back, it was obviously in spasm, no wonder it hurt so much! So she did my usual back treatment:acupuncture, mobilising of the vertebrae and facet joints and then massage. She said we need to make sure we look after my back throughout this rehab and try to ensure it does not go into full spasm. But she is still convinced my back will get , get the long term now my hips are fixed. 

6 weeks post (2nd) Op

16th December 2015 

The last week of the 6 week post op period of minimal weight baring and other restrictions has been the hardest. I felt pretty bouncy and positive up till then but all of a sudden, my right leg started to play up and I was finding it hard to get around, as my right leg would just feel so tired that I had to sit down before I fell down! I was also pretty tired and achey all over. Sleep wasnt great. I'd found that I could lie on my non-op side with a pillow between my legs to support the op leg. But I think that just aggravated my right hip in the screw area and made it bit sore and swollen. I could also sleep on my front but whilst this was comfortable for my hips, it was no good for my back as it just made my lower back achey and tense. So I was finding that what ever position I went to sleep in, I'd wake 2 or 3 hrs later from the pain of either pressure on my right hip or tenseness in my lower back. I tried sleeping on my back again but would usually end up not getting off to sleep until 2/3am. 

Despite the overall achiness, especially in my right leg, my left leg continued to be surprisingly good. Not much pain from it, and  not the constant gnawing groin pain I had from my right leg at this same point. 

Tuesday 15th December saw me down in Truro for my post op check. I had an X-ray taken and then saw my surgeon. He has really pleased, he said he could hardly see the fracture line in my trochanter and that I had healed really well. He said I could start putting my full weight through it from that moment, carry on using 2 crutches for two weeks, then down to one crutch until I could walk without wobbling from side to side.   All restrictions were lifted, I could do whatever ever I wanted, even horse riding, yoga and swimming from 8 weeks, but to listen to my body and stop if it hurts. 

In reality this means that from eight weeks, horse riding will be just see if I can get on amd walk round. Swimming will by strengthening exercises in a hydrotherapy pool . I don't think I'll be going to yoga class until I have got rid of the last crutch. But I can do some of the gentle poses at home

  

I asked him about my right hip, mentioning that it had been a bit grumpy the last week or so with some swelling at the bottom of the scar. He thought it would benefit from having the screws taken out but that he could do it the same time as taking screws out of left hip next year. Then he looked a bit closer at the X-ray and said he could see some inflammation/bone spur but that had grown in that hip since surgery  but that it wasn't causing impingement. 

We decided I'd come and see him in April for another X-ray/review. 

I started weight baring as soon as I left his room and it felt OK, my right leg deffinatly appreciated having the pressure taken off. 

My left hip on 15th December, 6 weeks post op. The screws look to be a different angle to my right hip. I wonder if this will mean I won't ongoing discomfort  from them like I do from the right?

My right hip at 2 years 2weeks post op. I have circled the area of inflammation/bone spur that my surgeon pointed out, this has grown since March 2014. The technical term for it is Heterogenic Ossification. I googled it last night and freaked my self out, it seems in the USA, many people that have hip surgery are put on long term anti inflammatories or have one-dose of radiation to prevent HO developing. We don't get that in the UK.  HO can cause impingement depending on location, can irritate surround tissues causing pain and can even break off and lodge somewhere causing pain. So I have decided to try and forget about it as all the scenarios could equally not happen. The X-ray in April will show of it has changed,nor if HO has formed in my left hip. Fingers crossed it won't.