Things get a little better each day. Outside of a Vicoden at night, I am off pain killers. That makes me feel soooo much better. I get depressed when taking those things. Severely in fact.
Not much discomfort in the left hip. Much less burning sensation than I had after the last two. Sitting upright is only marginally uncomfortable. Still motion machining and ice machining for hours each day. The right hip has been a little aggravated since the op, probably b/c I am completely favoring it while on crutches. I believe that will mitigate once I can start weighting both legs.
The video above is from the procedure. They give this to you in recovery, which I think is super cool and a good illustration at how dialed the folks at Western Orthopedics have this procedure.
PT is simple at this point. 20 minutes per day moving pedals around a bike on a trainer and 6 or so hours in a constant motion machine, which is the name implies, is a machine that constantly moves my leg back and forth, quite slowly and with annoying squeaking sounds as it lowers. Twice a week I go see Russ at Alta PT in Boulder and he moves my leg around. Initial movement looks and feels good with less of the twingy pain I recall during early PT from the prior two operations.
4 days in on the repair and feeling good overall, just a little groggy. Still on two pain killers as there seems to be more residual pain that I remember from the other two ops, however, the drugs work well and I am more comfortable laying around than I remember.
First PT is later this afternoon - will be interested to see what Russ has to say. Crutching around is not painful, the only difficult part is keeping 20% or less weight on the left leg. The VascuTherm 5 is a fantastic cold treatment machine - I am on it for at least 18 hours per day. I was able to get into the programming mode and adjust it to exactly what felt right for me.
Sitting in general is more comfortable than I remember this close to the procedure - despite swelling being greater. I had virtually zero swelling the first time around on the left hip - this time my thigh looks like I inflated it with a bike pump.
Mom came to town and has proven to be a huge life saver for Natalie and I. Managing two small kids plus an immobile grouch (me) is a lot, and the kids are having a blast with their Mimi hanging around.
Great way to stretch the adductors. By "sitting back" in the stretch, I was able to feel a nice release all the way up the adductor. Nice change of pace compared to the side lunge stretch. Will be adding these in for prehab and warm ups.
So I just had my first ever dry needling session to try and relieve some nagging aches in my left hip area (15 months post op from FAI surgery). The needling in my adductor was some of the worst pain that I have ever felt. I was sweating within seconds, and even dropped an F-Bomb (or two). The twitching was so intense due to the tightness of my adductor. I knew it was tight, but I had no idea. When I felt the hard, dense strand of the adductor as it nears the pubic bone, I just assumed that was the hard tendon.....nope, that was my muscle! Hard as a rock! Reach down and feel your achilles tendon (back of foot, connects to calf); that's how hard my adductor muscle is! Damn! Anyway, here's to six weeks of pain as we get this sorted out. And Lord, please forgive me for all the horrible things I was thinking about my PT as she did her job....
