Anyone here dealt with a torn hip labrum? Did you have surgery to repair it? If so, was the surgery worth it? How long was your recovery?
Thank you.
I’ve had both labrum’s repaired surgically. It really depends on how much pain or discomfort you are in. And if you have explored every other option: PT, injection, etc. For me, it was worth it. Recover is slow. 6 months to get back to normal training. You are biking on a stationary trainer relatively quickly. Running was around the 3 month mark.
I’m about 6 months post a crash that tore my labrum (or at least exposed a torn labrum), broke my femur, broke a couple ribs, grade 3 shoulder tear, torn back muscles… you name it!
On the labrum, I got every diagnosis under the sun. I had one guy telling me I’ll need a new hip, and another telling me to just wait and see. And everything in between from 6 doctors total. Wild ride.
Ultimately, it was a “small and stable” tear, so I went with PRP injections after a couple months completely off (because of the femur and shoulder mostly). So far so good. I ran the NYC Marathon in Nov after the crash in May. Still feels a liiittle iffy every now and then, but I think I might have rushed the stress fracture back if anything. The injections are helping the tear from what I can tell.
Even if it just buys me a couple years before surgery, I’m happy with that. I planned on taking it easy after this year anyway (last year of pro eligibility). But from the discussions I’ve had with multiple experts, this could actually help heal and/or keep the labrum stabilized, so I’m optimistic it could keep me from surgery completely.
A couple pain free 50+ mile weeks with swimming and biking so soon after such a crazy crash at least had me thinking maybe. But I know it’s still too soon to call this a done deal. I’m optimistic though.
But if it was not a small or stable tear I probably would have gotten surgery ASAP so I could heal as soon as possible.
Twelve years ago while dealing with piriformis, orth discovered a minor tear (CAT scan & MRI). Asymptomatic. Good luck.
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hit me up later, I don’t have time now, had surgery for that + ischiofemoral impingement (the rare type of impingement, in the back) 10/15/24
I’m so sorry you have this
message me later if I forget to come back to this, ok?
I’ve had some hip injuries this year and did some research and found a PT on youtube with alot of success stories. I purchased his Healthy Hips program and do it often, I’ve had great results in strengthening my hips and reducing pain. He also has plenty of free videos on his channel Upright Health. Definitely worth a try before considering surgery.
Get Stronger, More Flexible, and More Confident with Upright Health
Hip labral tears: what you need to know and what your doctor won’t say
I’m a PT and have seen a lot of people with this pre and post op. Feel free to message me with questions about it… Kinda hard to give my thoughts without more information, as the best course of action can be very individual.
I had a torn hip labrum surgically repaired (by an Ironman triathlete who, of course, was also an orthopedic surgeon) at the end of February, 2011. I was racing triathlons in July. IIRC, crutches for six weeks (but doing swim workouts after two weeks with single leg flip turns. Pro tip: using crutches on a wet pool deck is very dicey) with PT and easy trainer spinning, walking for a couple weeks, then started running.
Thank you for the replies. I had a follow up today to see how the injection worked. I really didn’t feel much relief from the injection. The Dr. is saying that if I didn’t feel relief from the injection than the surgery may not work either. They also found a cam lesion which could also be causing the pain. I am scheduling an appt. with another ortho for a second opinion. I have tentatively scheduled the surgery for February pending my appt. with the second Dr.
Obviously disappointed and frustrated to hear that surgery may not work.
Don’t rely on one opinion. I went through 6 doctors and got 6 completely different opinions. No joke. And PRP injections aren’t really expected to help for a couple weeks, at minimum. And I’m doing 3 rounds, 5 weeks apart.
I didn’t think I could have gotten any useful data from how I felt immediately after the first one.
Extensively experienced here. Have not read anything but original post. Words to the wise, hoping I’m not too late:
- Exhaust all options pre-surgery, including actual rest. Yes, rest.
- Everyone has partial tears of their hip labrums (okay not everyone but you get it)
- Evidence is extraordinarily mixed on the effectiveness of surgery + surgery-length-rest-and-PT vs. just surgery-length-rest-and-PT. As in, if you do a post-OP recovery period you may calm down and strengthen all the tissues that needed to be repaired.
- Surgeries can go wrong. They do. Get a conscientious surgeon with an excellent record who is not hasty to perform the surgery.
- If you get the surgery, observe the timelines and if you’re the type to push the limits and want to get back quickly, get yourself an accountability partner with an iron will, and ask your surgeon for quantitative and time-based limits on everything you do. Stay under the limits and you’ll be golden when you return. Push past the limits and high odds of needing revision surgery.
- If you feel questionable about first radiologist or surgeon’s report or recommendations, get a second one. Go with the more conservative option.
- If you decide to postpone or forgo surgery for now, you can always circle back later. In the meantime, get a great PT who will make you do what they say, including rest and slowly progressive strength training over many months.
Your hip didn’t get to where it is today in a day or even a few weeks or months (unless you had a bad crash that caused hip labrum damage). It’s not going to get back to feeling great in a few weeks or couple months, regardless of surgery or not.
Biggest message of all: The more you image, the more you’re going to find. You have very little evidence even with the most extensive imaging possible that the things that are being visually found are directly causal or even related to your pain.
Pain is often misleading. Pain is interpreted in your brain. Brains are tricky. If you find out you have a such-n-such on imaging your brain will get better (very convincingly) at feeling such-n-such pain. Imaging + misleading pain = Extra misleading pain.
Give this topic 10 years and more surgeons are going to be more well-versed in how to have conversations about pain with driven athletes who might hope that surgery is a quick or guaranteed fix for something that it is actually not. Of the dozen orthopedic surgeons I’ve interacted with in the last 5 years, only one was reasonably adept in reading the athlete on the table, and discussing surgery and pain in alignment with the summary of the related literature.
I hope some portion of this is helpful to someone.
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