Thanks! It wasn’t as bad of news as I feared. He said fusion is likely in my future but not right now. He wants me to have the epidural and facet blocks and see how it goes. I think he said I could have that up to three times every 6 months as needed? Not sure my insurance would be cool with that but we will see. The surgery he would do is called XLIF. He gave me a brochure and said to google it too.
Went for my epidural yesterday but he switched it to nerve root blocks at L4 and L5 I think. I have had those twice before without issue but this time I could not walk afterwards. They put me in a wheelchair and put me in the car. I was ok once the lidocaine wore off. So far it hasn’t helped and may have actually irritated things because I had to take a pain pill and ice at 3am. Today isn’t too bad though so maybe there is still hope it will do the trick.
As a last ditch before a fusion, my doctor sent me to get electro acupuncture. I am getting a treatment as we speak in fact. Basically they stick the needles in VERY DEEP then hook it up to a car battery and leave the room for three days. Or so it seems! But I must say as unpleasant as it is, it seems to be helping. I went to the gym and rode my horse yesterday and took no pain meds. It is worth a shot of you are out of options like me.
Been an hour so far and still laying here but the car battery must have ran out of juice!
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One of the things my PT did w/ trigger points in other states (WA doesn’t allow it). He said it was VERY effective…
Altho he said for TP’s it was only about 20 mins…
[QUOTE=tollertwins;8843448]
One of the things my PT did w/ trigger points in other states (WA doesn’t allow it). He said it was VERY effective…
Altho he said for TP’s it was only about 20 mins…[/QUOTE]
Now that I think about it she may have been doing the trigger points and not the acupuncture points. Truthfully the electro part lasts about ten minutes but the needles were in at least an hour. Most of the needles I didn’t even feel when they went in but the ones in the trigger points hurt like a mofo going in and coming out. Not too bad the rest of the time but you don’t want to move even a tiny bit. The oddest thing to me is how I feel when it is over. I feel ok when I am lying there but as soon as I get up I feel like I had way too much to drink. Like I can barely walk straight to my car and have to sit there a while before I feel ok to drive.
^^^ You poor thing, so sorry! Sending healing thoughts!
I went and got my piraformus injected today in hopes of being able to stop the electro acupuncture torture. I totally forgot to tell my doctor that my acupuncturist has also been doing cupping on me. It didn’t dawn on me until I was taking the bandage off and I saw the circular hickey underneath! Hopefully he recognized what it was.
I’ve been seeing a PT person who does trigger point release type stuff and has the most wonderful/awful pointy fingers. She’s the FIRST ONE (and my FOURTH PT person) to address the psoas major. (Look at all it connects! I have pain in all those places! Why has no one talked about this before???) Trigger point for that is her pointy fingers digging into my belly. Fun! :dead: (She also uses her pointy fingers on all of those terrible butt muscles like the piraformus. It only almost makes me puke.)
BUT, when I leave her place, everything feels pretty good and I feel like we have a good plan to move forward. Yay!
Also working on getting PRP scheduled for the left hip and right shoulder. Totally dreading the flare, but hoping for improvement following.
Laurie, what does your person inject when doing the piraformus? Just block? Or steroid, too? Curious what works for you! (And I hope it’s helpful!!!)
He used lidocaine so it won’t hurt as bad and cortisone (I assume) My PT guy always worked on my PSOAS. He said it can cause diarrhea, said he had one person get mad at him because she lost ten pounds after he worked on her PSOAS. I told him 1. I would give him $100 if he made me lose ten pounds in one PT session and 2. I lost 1 1/2 pounds prepping for my colonoscopy so that woman needs more fiber.
Just wanted to update in case people search for this thread. I was diagnosed with FAI and a labral tear back in March and continued on to surgery after PT didn’t help me get back to riding. I’m now 6 months post-op and riding and jumping with no restrictions. I feel great. I do get a bit sore still but that’s still normal! I think there is hope for this surgery for people without arthritis.
Good on you, faller offer!!
My hip surgeon here said that the best results he has are people under 40 w/ no arthritis!
Good on you, faller offer!!
My hip surgeon here said that the best results he has are people under 40 w/ no arthritis!
Reported the spam even though I completely agree with the spammer. Don’t click on his link though!
Weird that this thread got spam-resurrected on a rare day when I’m actually on CoTH. Anyway, hope everyone’s hanging in there!
I kind-of stopped posting here once I hit a wall with bad health insurance and limited financial leeway to pursue further treatment for my hip issues. I’m still grinning and bearing the deep hip pain when riding and am struggling to do active things without being crippled the day after. Can’t believe it’s been 2 years since my failed surgery! I hope each of you dear CoTH hip pain buddies is doing better than we all were at the height of this thread!
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I’m sorry you’ve hit such a brick wall, x-halt!
I’m on the pain management clinic and counting down to a THR plan, myself. Fun times, right?!
Fun times, indeed!
I hope the pain management is at least meeting some success… wishing you the best, Simkie!
I was just thinking last week…my quality of life has improved so much since my THR 4 years ago. I wish I had done it much earlier.
Sending healing thoughts to all hip pain club members…
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Everyone I know that had THR surgery said the same.
The surgery was great, compared with the crippling pain.
My experience with Dr Gross has been fantastic. He considers riding a high impact situation but I don’t think he is very horsey. Do you still post on surface hippy?
Here I am again. My husband was hit and run by a truck while he was riding his bicycle in May so I had to take over his chores. I was mowing the lawn sometime in July I think and turned right one too many times and have had hip pain ever since. PT helped as did piraformus and bursa injections but it was all temporary and never got me to the point that I could sleep comfortably on my right side.
I have had MRIs on both my hip and lumbar spine which turned up nothing remarkably new. Nerve blocks on my lumbar spine did nothing. Hip doctor saw the MRI and said it looked fine to him and everything that the radiologist mentioned on the report was likely just the stuff he fixed when he operated on it. Said he didn’t think the pain was coming from my hip but the only way to know for sure was to do a diagnostic hip block. Guess what? 100% pain relief for two days. UGH! Now what?
