I'm at 10 months post op.... and i feel like the past few months have continued to bring additional strength and endurance in my new hip.
At the 6 month mark I started running againk, but my leg felt week. I think a lot of that was due to how long my hip had been hurting and just how weak my leg had become.... by about month 7-8 I was doing short jogs, but after running short distances, I sitll felt like i got a slight pulling sensation in my hip.. not hte joint... but the soft tissues around the incision... I have no idea what was causing the sensations.. and i would not call it painful... nohting like my old hip pain.. but I could tell something didn't like the running... i kept running to a minimum but continued elliptical and my PT, along with weight training.
at about the 9 month mark I really felt like my hip was almost at 100%.... I barely felt any twinges or anything. now at 10 months, it still feels great. I ddid a short run the other day and went about a mile.... at the very end, I felt a slight sorenss in the soft tissue that went away once I stopped and the next day I had zero residual pain... at months 6.. if I ran a mile, my hip was kind of sore for a day or two... subjectively, I can tell my hip is much stronger and less sensitive at months 9-10 vs month 6-7..
Dr. Gross and his staff had told me that I will continue to heal and make improvements up to about a year. My local orthopedic doctor, who i have continued to see a couple times - has confirmed that and said once you get to 12 months, that's about as good as you get. I still have two months to get BETTER.. and now at month 10, I consider myself 100%.. ok.. maybe 90%....
but 1000000% better than before surgery!!
for anyone contmplating surgery... or just out of surgery.. I take with a grain of salt, any stories about people going moutnain biking at 2 months post op and stuff like that....
for me.. i felt "better" the day after surgery than I did the day before... i had surgical pain.. but the bone on bone pain was gone. I quickly made a lot of improvements... but when you are on crutches... suddenly being able to wal on a cane, then no cane... those are BIG improvements... by 3 months I felt really good and at 6 montsh I felt great.. but certain motions or angles still bothered my hip. if I stood on my operated leg and put all my weight on that leg.. it felt solid.. but then when I went back to two legs.. and the weight came off my operated leg.. I'd feel "something".. not pain.. just a weird sensation.... the muscles and soft tissue adjustting... it wasn't pain. it just felt "differente". not at 10 months, I can support myself on my operated leg.. hop on it... and I don't feel anyting. every now and then i still get tha tlitle twinge.. or something... but 99% of the time, my opeated hip feels as good or BETTER than my "good" one...
i'd say a safe bet is that in 6 months you will feel amazing.... but if you want to go run, play a hard core sport.. etc... give it a year. i was easily cycling at 6 months with ZERO pain.. but the impact stuff like running... I can tell I feel BETTER now at 10 months than I did at 6......
Getting my hip fixed was the best thing I have ever done medically... it literally transformed the quality of my life. I wish I had done it sooner. I hope anyone reading this site.. who is in teh kind of pain I was in 10 months ago - gets ti FIXED and get your life back!!! I have ZERO regrets!!