Have any of you triathletes had avascular necrosis of the hip and had core compression surgery? Just wondering if my Tri career is over :(, and hoping someone has had the surgery and was able to get 100% back at it.
I had core decompression in my hip for AVN 2 summers ago. My swimming is on par where it was before surgery, ride distance is on par but a little slower, still working on getting running back. I can give more details if you want, but results are going to vary depending on how much damage is done before they do the surgery and if the surgery is successful in halting the necrosis. I still have hopes of returning to Ironman distance, but I haven’t proven that I’ll be able to run that distance again.
Thanks for the info, how long after the surgery was it that you could run a few miles
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The core that was drilled out had healed well enough after about 6 months for the doctor to okay short runs. Pain actually kept me from running for another 6 months. Started back doing 10 minutes of 30 seconds walk/run on the treadmill still with a good amount of pain on footfalls. Took about 6 more weeks for the pain to ease up enough to be able to do a mile nonstop. the pain was from bone marrow edema that developed well after surgery. I think the main 2 limiters you’re going to find are how fast the bone regrows so that you don’t risk fracturing the ball joint at the femur, and how much pain you experience. Without the bone marrow edema, which my doctor said was uncommon, you should be back at it sooner than I was.
Wasn’t this the same outcome, but from an injury (trauma/crash, I think) suffered by Floyd Landis? Lots of negatives here, but he performed at a pretty high level after. MIght be instructive to see what interventions he experienced…
Running is not a risk factor for avascular necrosis and does absolutely nothing to cause it. Once the necrosis is stopped, it’s fine to start running again as long as your surgeon says the bone is strong enough. If I gave up on running just because there was pain I would have never made it past my first week as a new runner.
Xfish, there is hope that you can continue with running and triathlon, but it’s not guaranteed. I’d recommend having your surgery as soon as you can so that you halt the necrosis as early as possible. Be ready to accept that things will probably be different after surgery, even if its successful. It’s likely that the ball of your hip joint will no longer be perfectly round, and there is no fixing that. Thankfully, as triathletes, we’re not limited to just a single sport. As I’ve worked to return to running, I’ve enjoyed to half aquabikes and I’m doing my first 6 hour TT next spring. Expecting to do some sprints then too, and hoping for a late season Ironman. Enjoy some downtime and you should be back on the bike and in the pool in a couple of months. I encourage you to follow all your surgeon’s directions for recovery and not go faster than he recommends, as the goal is to avoid(or at least significantly delay) a hip replacement.
Thanks again for all the input, just has been a mental blow for me when it was originally diagnosed as transient osteoporosis, and though I would be running soon with 4 months off, only to find the bone is still not getting blood from the r X-ray a few days ago. The good news is the bone is fully intact, no crumbling, but do need to jump on this surgery. Thanks for all the input. I want to get back to at least doing half IM someday, and it is just a mental blow, I really enjoyed running, and need to look at this as an opportunity to improve my bike, god willing, the surgery works and gets the bone healing.