#fluoroscopy arthrogram

[chronic-confessions]

Confession #5,092

This is a bit weird because I had just submitted about my FAI and that I was finally getting my arthroscopy…

And during the appointment, they ended up not doing the arthroscopy because an x-ray revealed the actual problem: congenital hip dysplasia and developing arthritis in my spine.

I was misdiagnosed.

How did my previous doctors not notice this?!

Anyway, I’m getting another MRI with contrast as well as a fluoroscopy arthrogram to make sure I don’t need an arthroscopy to repair the cartilage before they go in and reshape my hip socket. I will need a hip replacement at some point, but right now we’re aiming for hip preservation.

I’m not upset. I’m baffled that it wasn’t caught sooner with how many images of my hip have been taken in the 6 years I’ve been struggling with this, but honestly I just feel validated. I wasn’t going crazy. I was actually getting worse. Now we have a concrete plan in place and I’m so relieved.

Granted, compared to FAI, this is worse. But now it makes sense why heating pads, ice packs, physical therapy, and countless medications just…didn’t help. It explains why my imaging wasn’t consistent. It explains everything.

[saeuna]

Hip update!

I'm not going to try and read the MRI images on my own because even though I have a good idea of what's going on I'd rather wait for the report from the professionals.

This is easy to read though. You can definitely see that my hip socket does not fully cover the femoral head. And that "fun" pocket my cursor is pointing at? Pretty sure that's the damage to my joint. The rest of my cartilage is looking good though.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the steroid they gave me lasts longer than a week. It would be GREAT to be able to stand/walk for more than 5-10 minutes at a time.