6/28/12 - diagnosis

At the end of March, I played in a 2 day Ultimate tournament. Played in would be an overstatement...I subbed in only when I was absolutely needed. It was muddy and I had a bad feeling about running in that much mud.

Last year I had some hip flexor issues, and what we assumed was a labrum tear, left hip. MRI with arthogram (Oct 2011) turned up a whole bunch of nothing. I did some active release therapy, physical therapy, and started running again. By the time I signed up for that tournament in March I was back to playing pickup and feeling pretty good about returning to club level play for Centex.

By Monday morning, I knew that even limited play time had been a bad idea. So in early April, I grabbed an appointment with a new orthopedic clinic closer to my home. I had an appointment with Dr D. He thought labrum tear on examination, but decided on the conservative route of physical therapy, steroid dose pack, and LOTS of anti-inflammatories (800mg ibprofen 3x daily). 6 weeks later I wasn't getting any relief. At my recheck he punted me to a hip specialist, Dr M.

Dr M appears to be the Dougie Houser of the office. Youngest doctor there and very smart. He looked at old films and MRI and ordered some new films. And by the time I left that afternoon, I had a diagnosis.

FAI or Femoroacetabular impingement, specifically CAM. And global overgrowth of the labrum.

Basically, the femoral head (top part of your hip) needs to be shaved down since it's too large/misshapen. In addition, the labrum, which is the lining of the hip joint is overgrown. So they would need to cut that back too.

Some cases can be done arthroscopically, but Dr M thinks mine would need to be done open. More scars, yay.

Obviously I'm not jumping into this without another opinion. I plan on researching who the best guy is in Houston and seeing him for another opinion. In addition, I'll be getting another MRI with an arthogram probably at the end of August (to look to see what else might be going on in my hip).

For now, it's nice to have explanations as to why I was also having TFL pain, hamstring insertion pain, etc.

I have a bunch of things to do and places to see before I can have this surgery, though, so we are looking at the end of October or early November before I go through with it. I've spent the better part of three days researching FAI and surgical options. While I've found plenty of medical journals, I haven't found many first hand accounts, so I intend to put mine out there. If for no other reason than someday, someone will be googling FAI and might come across this. Maybe it will answer questions or quiet their fears, and if so, keeping this blog is totally worth it.