I was so thrilled with the first four months of recovery from my FAI hip impingement surgery that I almost signed up to have my other hip done. Then as luck should have it, I likely overdid with the easing into running and caused a nasty flare up of psoas bursitis and ended up back at square one. Total depression took over at that time as I spent six weeks on the bike and intensive physical therapy trying to get back to where I was during the third month.
Below are excerpts into my experience during the months 3-6 of FAI repair recovery, which sucked compared to my first three months of FAI surgery recovery. All excerpts are taken from my online training blog and were written in the moment on the day noted.
March 4, 2013 – Yay Skiing! Tested out the “new” hip on my cross-country skis this morning and it did pretty well. Took about an hour to get the hip flexor loosened up, but it eventually felt nearly normal. PM: Lil biking, 3×4 minutes of running on the TM, and hip drill.
March 5, 2013 – Absolutely thrilled with how amazing my hip feels after skiing and running yesterday! I think all that hip extension cross-country skiing broke up some crap. When I went into this surgery they told me that my hip would end up feeling better than it did pre-injury, but to not expect it to be any better than that. Well I can honestly say it feels better than it ever has. I have better range of motion and it just feels good. I so happy 🙂
March 8, 2013 – My fave band played the last 2 nights at the State Room. I am sooooo not too old for this lifestyle. Just happy the hip held up for a total of 8 hours of hippie bouncing over a 24-hour period. Yin is to the Yang as the Hee is to the Haw. Yup – exactly!
AM: Bike & coffee & more coffee
PM: 3 x 7 minutes of running at Liberty Park. 9:47 avg pace. It’s a start.
March 18, 2013 – 3 x 8 minutes of running on the BST!!! Just did laps around Morris Meadow, but who cares I am back out on the trails.
March 23, 2013 – PM: 3 x 10 minutes of running plus a little extra to get me to 3.5 miles and an even 10 for the week!!! Pace was 10:10, 9:17, 9:07, 9:18. Not bad for 15 weeks post-up but my poor calves ughhhhh!
March 27, 2013 – Had a rough hip day yesterday 🙁 Hopefully things start loosening up today!
AM: Biking
PM: More biking. Biking hurts. Like really hurts.
March 28, 2013 – I have what they call iliopsoas bursitis. I am pretty swollen and have really limited hip flexion. I am told it is not uncommon in this stage of the recovery and I guess it will only calm down with total rest and ice. I felt better the day after surgery then I do now, but that could have been all the drugs.
March 31, 2013 – 20 minutes on the arm bike. 3 minutes on the elliptical with zero resistance and zero incline until I had pain so I stopped.
April 17, 2013 – Starting over.
These last few weeks have been a bit discouraging. After a few weeks of light activity and absolutely no PT except for stretching, ultrasounding, and manual therapy I am now back to doing some basic PT exercises and biking with zero resistance. Holy deja vu! These are the same exercises I started when I was still on crutches except for back then I didn’t have any pain with them.I have been going over and over in my head how this happened. I was doing so fabulous and really thought I was being patient and careful. I look back at my posts and laugh that the only thing I was complaining about when I started running again were my shins. I was so worried that I was going to get shin splints – ha ha. Six weeks ago I did a 45 mile bike ride and was easing into running 10 miles a week and now look at me. Sad.
There are really only 2 possibilities. I either overdid it or I managed to re-tear something in my hip. My ortho surgeon and PTs both agree this is weird, but x-rays and images are all good. We are giving it 1 more week and if it is not getting better we will go in for more advanced imaging and injections and other fun stuff. Big problem is with everything done to my hip it is really hard to see with imaging if anything is wrong. The only good way to see is by going back in.
I really want to be positive, but something doesn’t feel quite right. It feels exactly how it did before the surgery, but worse.
Lame.
May 14, 2013 – It is official, I can start running again. But I have lots of rules… For the next week I can only run 2 X 5 minutes every other day on the treadmill. I need to stick to the rules and not go ape crazy so as not to have a repeat of what happened in March.
I am not exactly happy with the level of pain I still have, but at this point I have to be healed and just probably have a bunch of scar tissue that needs to get broken up. I can elliptical and bike as much as I want though with pain as my guide.
May 30, 2013 – So you want to run forever? This article, Long May You Run, made me very happy and hopeful or maybe it was the 1.6 miles I crushed this morning – ha!
AM: 2 x 8 minutes of RUNNING – yippy!!!
PM: Elliptical and well-needed restorative yoga