Anyone here have had surgery to repair a torn labrum. Going into the hip ortho tomorrow to confirm. They did a cortisone injection a couple weeks ago. The numbing medication helped but the cortisone didn’t do anything. I just had another hip MRI yesterday this time with contrast. Given the pain level I’m in something is definitely wrong.
So assuming it’s a labral tear who has had this and how’s the recovery?
My wife had the surgery about a year ago. Things are still pretty rough for her. After 4 or 6 months or so she was running again. She very slowly built volume back up and just as she was starting to be able to put in some real training she started experiencing too much pain and has not run at all for 2 months.
Seems muscle atrophy caused some serious imbalances around the hip. She is in physical therapy to try to rebuild her glutes. Seems they basically lost their ability to fire. Couldn’t use them no matter how hard she tried.
See if they can a muscle stimulator for her. My ortho ordered one when I had knee surgery a few years back. One of the quad muscles was really weak and was causing me issues, it helped out a bunch.
But that sucks what I’ve read has been either it was great if you followed the protocol or it really sucked.
Unfortunately it seems inevitable at this point given the pain I’m in with it. My bigger concern is something else is wrong with it also. Googling how much should this actually hurt doesn’t work to well haha.
Surgery 12/27/16, swimming with buoy two weeks after surgery, cycling 3 weeks after surgery. Running in March, first bike race in April, first triathlon in June and a half IM in July.
Almost a year later I am doing well. I still feel some aches and pains here and there. The best thing i did before surgery was work a lot of core and hip strength. I also did a lot of PT at home and started acupuncture which helped a lot.
I think her hip is all better now. It’s a muscular problem that she has now. I think her relatively weak glutes pre-surgery probably contributed to this.
She followed the physical therapy and back-to-running protocol religiously.
That doesn’t sound too bad my concern really right now is if there is something else wrong because of how bad it hurts.
I had surgery for a torn labrum (ended up being 3 tears) and FAI on 7/1/15. Tried PT and cortisone injection before surgery but just couldn’t get back to pain free running. Decided to go the surgery route.
Recovery was about 6 months. Started some biking in October (3 months) but wasn’t allowed to bike outside or in the aero position and not clipped in. Started a run/walk regime in mid November (4.5 months). Around the 6 month mark was when things started to click and I could bike and run without caution.
I have very minimal issues right now. If I have issues, they are all muscular which I stretch, foam roll, do strength exercises , and get a massage to help out.
The two biggest things about this surgery is having a good doctor who knows what he’s doing (preferably someone who has trained under Philippon) and following the rehab protocol to the T. This is not a surgery that can be rushed. A hip replacement surgery is much simpler and easier to recover from than this… just to give you some perspective.
I needed 8 weeks of completely no activity to get the pain to stop and to be even able to balance on one leg. This was after probably 2-3 months of stubbornly trying to get in workouts somehow
After that it was a 16 week slow slow slow return starting by walking and extensive gym work with cables attached to my ankles
Full recovery though. After that 16 weeks I had great strength and did a full build towards IMTX
Apologies — I just re-read yours and saw you’re asking for surgery recovery not the injury itself. Decided to post this anyways in case you consider healing it on its own
Surgery 12/27/16, swimming with buoy two weeks after surgery, cycling 3 weeks after surgery. Running in March, first bike race in April, first triathlon in June and a half IM in July.
Almost a year later I am doing well. I still feel some aches and pains here and there. The best thing i did before surgery was work a lot of core and hip strength. I also did a lot of PT at home and started acupuncture which helped a lot.
This sounds familiar. I had surgery at the end of February 2011. In the pool two weeks later (one legged flip turns are a bitch!), biking on the trainer (no aero position) a week later, lost the crutches after about six weeks, running after eight weeks, raced a few triathlons in July (won my AG in them, all sprints). Serious PT is a must as soon as you are able: like within a few days. I, too, still have some aches in the area, which I’m told is likely bursitis.
Your recovery also depends on the extent of the damage. I had only some damaged labrum to clean out, plus a bit of bone removal. The surgeon didn’t know until he opened me up whether he’d have to reattach the labrum; that was the first question I asked when I came to.
Good luck.
I’m going to see Dr Genuario, who I think worked with Philippon to pioneer the arthroscopic technique. He’s actually at the Steadman Clinic in Denver. Mine went from feeling like a pulled muscle to being in crazy pain. But during that time I was on pain killers for my broken ribs so I think I didn’t notice it getting worse.
We’ll see in a little bit but I’m really not too hopefully that it’s not something torn or really injuried.
You only had a cortisone injection? I had a steroid (betamethasone) injection a few weeks back and it did a lot for me. I’m well past the window where I should be feeling its effects (7 days) and my hip is considerably better than it was - maybe not ‘fixed’ but certainly manageable (lots of yoga, PT, massage, etc.)
Do you also have CAM/FAI? This would have shown up in both an xray and MRI.
I have had glute and hamstring pain for a while, and I have CAM/FAI. I’ve had an Xray and non-contrast MRI, both basically confirmed that (and a herniation at L2/L3…).
Doc is sending me for a contrast MRI in January to check for a labral tear, but that said, I don’t yet have pain that would indicate it is torn. He wants me to go anyway, just to have all the info in case it is there and gets worse. But I do also have a lot of muscle atrophy on that side in the glutes and hams.
So my rehab thus far has just been to try and strengthen the hell out of everything on that side…
Good luck
So what was your diagnosis? I have an ortho appointment soon to discuss the same thing.
So what was your diagnosis? I have an ortho appointment soon to discuss the same thing.
It ended up being a 2 bulged discs and one herniated one in my lumbar spine. Even though the injection should have been diagnostic, the doctors said the pain was way too much for a torn labrum so they did an mri of my spine and found those issues.
Thanks for the update.
It ended up being a 2 bulged discs and one herniated one in my lumbar spine. Even though the injection should have been diagnostic, the doctors said the pain was way too much for a torn labrum so they did an mri of my spine and found those issues.
Ouch. I exploded my L5/S1 in December. Still recovering from the surgery, but it’s going well. Sciatica sucks. Hope they got you fixed up.
My daughter has the same injury and swims in college. It seems that the level of pain varies by the individual and she is just gutting it out (Brag: She qualified for NCAA Nationals in the 100 Fly and Back).
We have an excellent shoulder surgeon who works with a number of sports teams. He said if she had surgery to fix it she should expect a few months out of the pool and
could maybe be back to nearly full strength at the start of next season. I think the healing process is slow because there isn’t much blood flow to the area.
It ended up being a 2 bulged discs and one herniated one in my lumbar spine. Even though the injection should have been diagnostic, the doctors said the pain was way too much for a torn labrum so they did an mri of my spine and found those issues.
Ouch. I exploded my L5/S1 in December. Still recovering from the surgery, but it’s going well. Sciatica sucks. Hope they got you fixed up.
They gave me prednisone and that really helped with the pain. I’ve been in PT the last two months and minus some muscle issues my back feels great.
I still have strained/pulled groin from las year that doesn’t want to get better but the back is feeling much better. Thanks for asking.
Not so wonderful update on this one. I was out riding a couple weeks ago and within a day or so I had a ton of pain again in my groin.
Went to see a different doctor at the practice that did my knee and shoulder and they confirmed it is my labrum. They’re beyond confused how the other doctor said it wasn’t, it’s clear on the contrast MRI along with it being in the radiologist report.
So I’ll have surgery hopefully next month or in August. They said running can be a concern because of the repetitive motion causing early arthritis so we’ll see how that ends up going.
My wife had her repair done two years ago, still can only run maybe a mile at a time. Hope yours is better than that.