Sports hernia – tear of the rectus abdominus / adductor longus

Hi all. I have never seen anything on this topic anywhere in the forums and I wanted to share my story in hopes that it may help someone else. My story is very long, but for purposes here, I will keep my initial post brief and go into further detail if asked.

33 year old male
Hip problems all my life. Always stiff, terrible flexibility
Diagnosed with arthritis in both hips 2010.
2012- Bilateral arthroscopy at HSS by Dr. Struan Coleman
2014- Arthritis became bone on bone
2015 – Hip Resurfacing (BHR) by Dr. Su at HSS in March and December of 2015.
Never completely recovered from my right hip surgery of December of 2015.

***2016-
Subsequent follow ups with Dr. Su office through 1 year out at December 2016 was continue doing physical therapy. My issues were that I still had poor flexibility, especially in my right side, I could not return to any form of running/jogging. I had constant lower back pain. I was not anywhere near where I thought I would be with two new hips. Why could I still not move? Continued doing PT on and off through 2016, no new results. The less activity I did, the less pain I would be in so I continued this cycle. Changes to my health insurance kept me from going back for another visit with Dr. Su after this, plus at this time in my mind, I never thought that the issue could be from my hip resurfacing since I had chosen one of the best surgeons in the world for this procedure.

***2017-
pain became even worse and continued traveling further in my body. In addition to groin pain, low back pain I now had constant hamstring tightness, glute pain and weakness. I could no longer do a straight leg raise of any kind. I could not run more than 30 seconds without my leg cramping up, and I would pay for trying to run with days of pain afterwards. Something was not right. Through reading all of these posts on the forums, I had convinced myself that I had some sort of Hip Resurfacing failure. My metal levels were a little elevated at 4.0 cobalt & 6.0 chromium.

***2018-
The year of doctor visits, consultations, and alternative treatments
After feeling I may have a resurfacing failure, I emailed Xrays and MRI reports to the other prominent hip resurfacing doctors on this website here and was told in summary:

Dr. Pritchett- most likely hip impingement and the acetabular component should be revised to be deeper in the socket and change to a polyehtelene cup to avoid metal issues.

Dr. Gross- Psoas tendinitis keep doing physical therapy. It’s most likely not impingement and its definitely not metallosis.

Dr. De Smet- Hip impingment. Hip revision to revise the acetabular cup angle because he believed it may be protruding out just enough to be causing an impingement.

Dr. Wayne Colizza (NJ)- Your implants look fine, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. This is probably the best you will be from surgery. I wouldn’t recommend any soft tissue surgeries. My advice is don’t go have surgery in New York City and then come to me to fix you.

Sports Medicine Dr #1 – I think the problem is coming from your back. Lets MRI your back. MRI looks clean for the most part with some minor indications of problems in your low back. Lets do injections in your back. I’ve never had back problems in my life knock on wood so I refused these injections.

Dr. Mayman HSS- ordered a hip MRI and suggested that it either be PSOAS tendinitis which he gave me an injection for, or a possible “sports hernia” which I never heard of before. Recommended follow up with a sports medicine specialist.

2019**

Dr. Anthony Scilia and Dr. Michael Kelly- diagnosed the sports hernia and confirmed it via ultrasound. Dr. Scilia surgically repaired it. It was a tear of the rectus abdominus / adductor longus muscle junction in my right groin. After rehab I have full range of motion now, the best I’ve had in my life. All my pain is gone and I’m able to do whatever activities I want. Finally enjoying the new hips that Dr Su gave me and I’m glad I didn’t listen to any of this hip revision advice. God only knows how much worse I would be.

The overall point to my post here is that I don’t know if sports hernia is on a lot of these hip doctors radar. This injury mimics hip joint problems in many ways. It took a good amount of searching for me to find a specialist in my area for this injury. And as you can see, I was smothered with all kinds of different opinions and faced with offers of major surgery again.

Matt – LBHR 03/31/2015 Dr. Su (HSS)
RBHR 12/04/2015 Dr. Su (HSS)