1-Yr Anniversary - General Thumbs Up

[TAJ]

Hi All.  Sept 20 is my one year anniversary of a Right Hip Resurfacing with Dr. Schmalzried in Los Angeles.  Overall I am very happy with the surgery as I can walk without pain and do not have a limp like I did pre-surgery.  Most of the time I do not even think about my hip or that I have an implant inside.  I ride my road bike hard on weekends, up to 70 miles of hills and flats, and working towards 100.  Overall a good success and recovery story and I won't hesitate to have my left hip done in another year or two.

Not a perfect recovery though.  I have strong pain in my right groin area when lifting my leg either from a lying down straight leg-lift (can barely lift it sometimes due to pain) or while sitting and trying to raise my knee above normal sitting position.  The pain goes away when lowering the leg.  I try to avoid these moves/positions throughout the day and there is no pain if I can avoid them.

The Dr. diagnosed the problem as psoas tendinitis - a soft tissue problem and not the implant shifting or anything like that.  He says the implant is rock solid in there.  I developed the tendinitis around month 7, possibly due to running on the treadmill too much (pain first occurred two days after running 20 minutes on treadmill).  Prior to this there were no pain issues and I was expecting a full recovery, but things changes at month 7.

The Physical Therapist said my butt muscle on the right side was too weak from the surgery and therefore my psoas (on the front) was over working, causing the tendinitis.  She has me doing butt-muscle strengthening exercises and the pain has definitely subsided somewhat, but still prevalent.  My right butt cheek has a noticeable depression / cave in it at the surgery site deeper than on the left side, so I am hopeful that as I build muscle that depression will fill in and look more like my left side and be an indication that the muscle has built up.  I am hopeful the tendinitis will go away, but I have read others on this site that it never did and may just have to live with it or explore other repair surgery (which I don't think I would do).

Other than the pain of the tendinitis, there are no other real problems and I am glad I did the surgery.  Although I cannot run (yet?) which was my goal going into this thing, I am still active with the bike and hiking and walking, and most importantly just living daily without the arthritis pain in the hip.

I appreciate this site for all it has done for me during this adventure, and good luck to all the future hippys.

 

       

[Dannywayoflife]

Hay Taj,
            thats great that your 1 year post op and are having a good out come! I hope that you can sort out the tendonitus and achieve your goal of running again!
All the best Danny

[ScubaDuck]

Overall it sounds like a great report.

I am curious about all the reports of issues with lateral muscles.  It seems like we are all good at walking, cycling, and generally moving our legs forward and back.  I am wondering if there is a part of physical therapy that most are missing out that rebuilds the lateral strength.

My PT has me doing several exercises specifically aimed at lateral strength.  I am also doing abductor and adductor exercises on the machines.  These are all very difficult and I feel very weak.  The band around the ankles and side stepping is a killer.  But it seems to work those muscles.

I also think all the balancing exercises that the PT is having me do is strengthening the smaller muscles.  These muscles seem to be important for stabilizing the hip joint.

I think we are all so excited to walk, run, cycle, hike, etc. that we forget there are other muscles that need strengthening and stretching too.

Dan

[Aerial]

As a fellow cyclist I am very excited that you have returned to cycling, even hilly cycling.  I had problems with my psoas at one point and it was quite painful.  I found deep tissue/sport massage plus also of stretching to really help.  I got into yoga and did a lot of the side to side (abduction and addiction stretches) within the context of yoga. I am still tight in this area and I think it is from compensating limp.  Did you have tightness in that area prior to surgery? 

Continued good luck to you.

[Pat Walter]

TAJ

Congratulations on your anniversary!  I wish you many, many more.  Thank You for posting your update for other folks to read. I hope you will overcome the tendinitis.  Sometimes it takes a long time to heal all the muscles, etc around the hip.  You might be able to eventually solve the problem - I hope so.  Good Luck.

Pat

[Anniee]

TAJ, really appreciate the report!  I sometimes get some pain doing the straight leg lifts also, which are prescribed by my doctor, however, the pain is not so bad that I cannot perform the exercise.  Never thought about the possibility that the butt muscles are too weak.  Best wishes for your continued recovery!