Some ramblings...

Oh I am so excited! I can not wait to meet with the new surgeon Dr. Phil Downer. I have heard great things from him. 3 more days until i have my second opinion. I was talking with an old friend a few days ago about learning of the labral tear and what will be some fixes. And she asked me, "Aren't you excited?" My first reaction was "Emm, NO" But after thinking about it I am excited to know what is going on in there and knowing what is causing me pain is awesome. Not excited about having to go through all this, and truly I am just done. Done with pain, done with aching, clicking, catching, twanging, crying, nerve pain. Done with limited mobility, weight gain, inability to move when I want, how I want, where I want and for as long as I want to. Done with not being able to run, ride a bike, roller blade, walk a mile with my family, stand for a while, sight see, walk in the park or the zoo. Crawl on the floor with my daughter, run around with her, play with her the way she wants to do it.

So yes, I am excited to finally know the truth of what is going on and to know that someday very soon this quite possibly will be over and I will be able to do everything and thousands more of what I mentioned above. I have remembered one thing from reading blogs and that is "Tomorrow will be better than today." So I will need to keep that in mind because that simple phrase has so much meaning and can be so powerful to someone going through something like this.

I wish my husband was going with me but he cannot miss work right now due to his job. So again I will be alone. Though I may need to just drag someone along with me for support. I have also read that bringing someone along with you preferably a male, will soften the doctor you're meeting with but either way I will ok. I am noticing I am having way too high hopes for this meeting with him and I am expecting him to be my saviour! Gosh, I really hope he is :) But if it does not turn out the way I want, there is another person still and the only thing I need to do is wait to meet him. So count down to Friday :D

Last week I went to my health care team and got all my records regarding my hip and I went through everything. It was very empowering to learn what the doctors have said about my hip, what their feelings are, and the "doctor-speak" for what is going on in there. I also googled everything I did not understand so I can be more prepared for my next appointment. I encourage anyone to do the same. Why not get your info and read up on it, it is very helpful even if you never look at it at least you have it there. I swear since I have read the notes by the doctor analyzing my MRI that I can feel exactly where the tear is. I know where I have been feeling the tear pain prior but now when it happens I know what it is and I can feel when it will happen. I can even make it do it purposefully, though probably not the best thing. I have been trying to prepare my hubby for all the possibilities of any type of surgery that I may have and he is not taking it well. I hope he can be my strength support because I am going to need it, BIG TIME :)

Xrays & MRI

These are some of the images I have.
#1 is the list of stuff they put into the hip when they did the fluoroscope injection before the MRI.
#2 is an image of the needle inside or right before going into the hip joint. OUCH.
#3 is just a pic of my right hip which shows deterioration on the pelvic bone where there should be a point above the femur. Also it shows a shallow socket and the femoral head is outside the socket. There is also a smoothness to the femoral head which differs from the left side which is not smooth. June 2010
#4 May 2011. This one shows both hips and you can compare each of them together. You can also see the difference a year made to the right hip. The deterioration on the pelvic bone above the femur head is much more present.
#5 is an image of an MRI scan. I have this on a disk and am able to scroll the scan to find the best pic. Its pretty cool to use though once you know what to look for. The arrows are where i am guessing the labral tear is, or places anyway if there are more than one.
#6, same thing.

So I contacted my primary yesterday and asked her to look into the results of my MRI because I was not sure when or how I would be getting any info about this. The surgeon that requested this MRI is half-retired and honestly I do not really want to see him again. I think he is a lazy doctor and he will not be doing my surgery. So She got back to me and informed me that 1: Yes I do have dysplasia, DUH. LOL and 2: I have a labral tear of the cartilage, or soft tissue, that lines the joint. The white part around the femoral head in the pics is the labrum. From what I have read online on many sights, it can be damaged fairly easily and people with dysplasia often have this going on too. Basically from I gathered at http://www.mayoclinic.com, A hip labral tear involves the ring of soft elastic tissue, called the labrum, that follows the outside rim of the socket of your hip joint. The labrum acts like a socket to hold the ball at the top of your thighbone (femur) in place. Symptoms include hip pain or a "catching" sensation in your hip joint. Initial treatment may include pain relievers and physical therapy. Using arthroscopic techniques, surgeons can remove loose fragments from within the joint and trim or repair the hip labral tear.

This "catching" and "clicking" sensation are things I feel every day and they are becoming more often and more painful. Pain killers do nothing for it unless I take so much which I do not like doing. Also I don't believe PT is helpful because honestly the LAST thing I want to do is move it and stress it when it hurts so bad. The catching and impingement feeling is very painful for me and often times if I step wrong I almost fall down because I feel there is no support for my step. Here is what mayoclinic.com said about the surgery: If you have a hip labral tear and experience hip pain for more than four to 12 weeks despite physical therapy, or if you have mechanical symptoms of your hip locking, your doctor may recommend arthroscopic surgery — in which a fiber-optic camera and surgical tools are inserted via small incisions in your skin.
Depending on the cause and extent of the tear, the surgeon may cut out and remove the torn piece of labrum or repair the torn tissue by sewing it back together.

I happened across another youtube video (why do I keep "happening" across these things and then KEEP watching?) on a labral tear fix. The doctor is showing a real-time, inside the joint, video and giving commentary on a late 40's woman. The first part was of the tool kind of shaving and sucking out the excess labrum and then the next part which I did not end up watching was starting to drive an anchor (a screw of sorts) into the labrum to keep in place. I stopped there.

I can't wait to see the surgeon Dr. Downer next week and see what he has to say. I am hoping his attitude is more hopeful and helpful than the last guy. I mean really, I know my weight has a big impact on everything but seriously, there are people bigger than I am who have gotten this fixed so just HELP ME :)

Ok off for now :D

EH MRI

So I just had my MRI today. Not awesome. In fact I freaked out and started to have a mild panic attack. My hip is hyper sensitive right now and the thought of having anything put into that joint scared me a lot. So I was crying and having shortness of breath. The nurse held me down and they strapped my legs down. BTW IT DID HURT! If you have ever had a root canal or a shot in your mouth to numb it and the shot went through a nerve and that TWANG feeling, then that is what it feels like. They numbed the skin with lidocain but its only topical. At first it was a tiny prick where the needle went in. Then when he put the needle in it was mild discomfort and a kind of vibration feeling but I have no idea what that would be from since I could not see what was going on. So it was in the flouroscopy/x-ray room where the physicians use an imaging technique to get real-time moving images of the inside of the body and this is called flouroscopy.  So he kept looking at the screen and then moving the needle a little deeper. This is when it started to hurt. About 5 times I was experiencing the TWANG of nerves. The doc said it was the pain of entering the inflamed joint cavity. Well DUH! lol yeah it is very much inflamed and angry at me. And that was the reason I was freaking out to begin with. Then he said we were done, told me to take a deep breath and blow out and he pulled out the needle while spraying the dye all over my bare legs. Yay!!

So then very carefully I moved onto another non-magnetic stretcher and wheeled down to MRI. This bed is very unstable and wiggles around while rolling so we crashed into 2 things lol. COMFORTING :) So I am experiencing extreme discomfort and just want to MOVE but moving disrupts the dye and that is not what we want. The MRI machine is huge and the table you lay on is so skinny. So they put pillows under my head and knees, gave me some headphones. Wrapped some foam "antennae/sensors" around both hips and strapped them down and then taped my feet together. And then we began.

My appointment was at 11:20. Called back at 11:40. Made me take a pregnancy test and got changed at 11:56. Then at 12:00 they started the dye injection. This ended at 12:25 25 mins!! And MRI started at 12:30.  The MRI process part lasted 45 minutes. There were several different scans that lasted anywhere from 1.5 mins to 5.5 mins and during the breaks is when I moved lol. While i was in there i was having muscle spasms and thought I was ruining it but after, I asked them about it and I guess many people do not feel the spasms but the MRI machine does that. It makes your muscles spasm and twitch. My left leg, fingers and face was twitching mildly. I guess the hardest part about the MRI part would be the part where my hip and knee were in pain and I could not move to alleviate the pain. The MRI machine was pretty relaxing actually. The sound of the scan I could hear over the music in the headphones was soothing and everything vibrated with the sound so it was soothing actually. I wanted to sleep but I was twitching and thought I was messing up so I didn't fall asleep.

Now home, 8 hours later I am still feeling pain when I step and move my hip joint. I cant take a full stride and hopefully it goes away soon. The MRI techs said it would be about 8 hours and should be fine. Took a few pain meds earlier and it did not help. I will just have to ride it out.

That is my experience with my first MRI and I REALLY hope it ends up being wonderful scans and we can see everything :D