August 11, 2014

Had a BHR on my left hip last Sept 20. I had had arthritis from a previous hip fracture accompanied by severe IT/knee pain. Post-procedure, everything had been going extremely well–I was following the fairly conservative recovery program prescribed by my doctor (no lifting or weight training, no high impact for a year post surgery) and I felt really perfect, but all of the sudden one day a couple weeks ago, it felt like I had some kind of insect bite on my front quadricep. I kept itching it and wondering how a mosquito bit me through my jeans. Then I realized what I was feeling was a tingling sensation which eventually became a greater tingling and numbness down the front of my thigh. And then I noticed that the area around my incision was kind of tender and I have some sensitivity in my buttock area. I don’t have any actual pain in my joint and even the other sensations aren’t really painful–it’s more discomfort than pain. However, it is REALLY scaring me thinking about something going wrong that might require a revision. I’ve been so looking forward to my first anniversary, getting off all restrictions. So I wanted to hear from the experienced group at this site. I did call my surgeon’s PA and he said it sounded like it might be bursitis. I’ve never had bursitis before (and don’t want it now!), but my understanding is that it is quite painful, and this is not really painful. I’ve been taking Aleve and icing and trying to do more of the prescribed stretches (which I admit I had slacked off on a bit), but it is not getting better. I also can’t think of anything I did to trigger it (though I did do some lipo-laser, that silly, non-invasive paddle thing, and micro-current sculpting, which my surgeon’s PA cleared and said would be totally unrelated–which I certainly hope is true). It feels like an overall weird, buzzy sensation–just very unpleasant and scary.

September 9, 2014

Update from 1st year follow-on appointment. The whole Meralgia Paresthetica issue–there really was no answer to this. My hip device looked perfect and there was no real conjecture as to what was causing the numbness and tingling except that I might have irritated sensitive nerves with other activities and that it would likely go away over time. BUT, it turns out I do have bursitis! The PA had me lay on my good side and pressed the usual spot for bursitis and yeoooow! It was so odd, because I could never feel that myself when poking around my incision area. So I got a cortisone injection to that site and it will take about 4 days to take affect. That will probably relieve the overall discomfort I was having and he suspects it may relieve the numbness and tingling. I also had a metal ion level blood test just to be on the safe side. So we shall see. So why bursitis now? He said it could be anything–he’s known people to sprain an ankle, then get bursitis in the other hip from the limp. But the main thing is, the hip device looks good, so in a couple weeks, after the cortisone does its thing, I’m off restrictions and working back up to my normal activity level.

April 20, 2015

I want to post what I just put on another thread, and repeat it on all the ones concerned with cycling. I got this from someone else on the site, so I don’t take credit, but I think it’s worth repeating.

While I did cycle some during recovery, I have started real road riding again (left BHR Sept 2013) and had concerns about falling on my hip. I read in one of these posts about POC VPD shorts and got some for peace of mind (there may be other brands, but the VPD technology sounded serious, so I went with them). I wear them over my normal bike sorts because I don’t want to interfere with the padding. It looks mildly funky, but after the indignities of hip surgeries and crutches and all, who cares.

Now here’s the thing–in 8 years of riding, I had never fallen–seriously, never, always successfully caught myself in time. But this past weekend, I went straight over, smack onto my left hip (and apparently fell perfectly because I never let go of my handlebar grip; was avoiding very fast motorcycles that appeared out of nowhere while crossing a street; had a partly clipped in, strongly breaking thing occur so fast I didn’t know what happened). And, I had ZERO pain, none at all. It was like nothing happened! Well, actually, my left hand became really sore, but is now clearing up after some icing. I was so relieved and I LOVE my VPD shorts. I highly recommend them.