My main concern is my hips. Both of my hips rotate inward at thirty-three and thirty-one degrees. A normal hip is placed in the socket at fifteen degrees. This was causing me a great deal of pain and I could not function in the ways I normally had. In July of 2010, my hip surgeons at the Hospital for Special Surgery performed a left hip surgical dislocation with arthrotomy, osteoplasty of the head neck junction with labral repair, and derotational osteotomy. A hip osteotomy is a surgical procedure in which the bones of the hip joint are cut, reoriented, and fixed in a new position. Healthy cartilage is placed in the weight-bearing area of the joint, followed by reconstruction of the joint in a more normal position. The surgery took about five hours, as I recall. It was a tough procedure. I was not allowed to put any weight on my left leg for six weeks. Once the six weeks were up, I pretty much had to learn how to walk again because I had not used my muscles in that leg for a long time. During that surgery, they placed a metal rod and seven screws into my femur to help it heal properly. The plan was to remove that hardware this summer when I had the same surgery on my right leg. However, the metal started to cause me great pain. I weighed only ninety-five pounds as for the fact that I lose a lot of weight from the surgery. But because I was so skinny, you could literally touch the outside of my leg and feel the bumps of the screws.
So on February 2 of this year, they removed all of the hardware. At the same time, they performed an arthroscopic procedure called an iliopsoas release. Your iliopsoas is a ligament that holds your spine and your pelvis together. Mine was (and possibly still is) what was causing my hips to snap and crack and all that loveliness. So they cut a diamond-shaped hole in my iliopsoas to release tension, in hopes that it would actually work. Well, it didn't.
So now we are back to square one. And on top of this mess, my right hip is acting up horribly. My iliotibial band is extremely irritated. I had a cortisone injection into this ligament. It worked for, I would say, a good four weeks. But when it finally wore off, the pain was worse than before the injection. I was in so much pain that I couldn't even go to school. I was on home instruction for eight weeks.
While working with my surgeons to come to the conclusion of my hip issues, I began to go through a series of tests for Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a very rare connective tissue disorder. It took about eight weeks total to finish the testing and declare the fact that I have EDS. I have type III, which is the hypermobility type (I will create another post about it specifically). So now that they have discovered that I in fact have this disease, we are working on ways to manage my pain.
Back to my hips... After seeing the doctors a few more times, it became apparent that I was going to need another surgery, this time on my right hip. I am having a surgery in late August on my right hip to alleviate some of the pain. So now, I am just trying to get through day by day, managing the pain as best as I can.
More posts to come; IIWII.
So on February 2 of this year, they removed all of the hardware. At the same time, they performed an arthroscopic procedure called an iliopsoas release. Your iliopsoas is a ligament that holds your spine and your pelvis together. Mine was (and possibly still is) what was causing my hips to snap and crack and all that loveliness. So they cut a diamond-shaped hole in my iliopsoas to release tension, in hopes that it would actually work. Well, it didn't.
So now we are back to square one. And on top of this mess, my right hip is acting up horribly. My iliotibial band is extremely irritated. I had a cortisone injection into this ligament. It worked for, I would say, a good four weeks. But when it finally wore off, the pain was worse than before the injection. I was in so much pain that I couldn't even go to school. I was on home instruction for eight weeks.
While working with my surgeons to come to the conclusion of my hip issues, I began to go through a series of tests for Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a very rare connective tissue disorder. It took about eight weeks total to finish the testing and declare the fact that I have EDS. I have type III, which is the hypermobility type (I will create another post about it specifically). So now that they have discovered that I in fact have this disease, we are working on ways to manage my pain.
Back to my hips... After seeing the doctors a few more times, it became apparent that I was going to need another surgery, this time on my right hip. I am having a surgery in late August on my right hip to alleviate some of the pain. So now, I am just trying to get through day by day, managing the pain as best as I can.
More posts to come; IIWII.
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