I had a visit to Philadelphia yesterday. I went down because I thought I had taken a pretty drastic step back. I figured I would have a consultation at my appointment time or later, that office is always really busy, and then come home.
Dr. Meyers listened to everything I said and answered all questions. Then he suggested I stay the day to get an MRArthrogram (spelling?) done on my hip with dye (not fun, magnetic fluid injected into my crotch followed by about an hour in an MRI tube). He thought I might have a labral tear which was giving my symptoms. He also gave me two cortisone shots in the area.
He stressed to me that unless the MRA showed real damage in my hip that keeping my activity level up was of primary importance during this phase of recovery from his surgery. He gave me the impression that slowing down or shutting down would result in nullifying the benefit of the surgery to a large degree. Of course, this was something I wanted to hear but didn't expect. He said that he really could not tell me I was in the low single digit minority of failed procedures until six months post op (and it's only been 2.5). As long as it is just pain management and I'm not doing real damage I am thrilled to keep my activity level up.
The MRA showed a small labral tear that he said was somewhat inconsequential (the test is so sensitive that it picks up tears that many people have had for a long time that would never affect them). I also had a pelvic MRI to look at his handiwork from the surgery and he said that it looked fine.
The cortisone has probably taken away half of the pain I was experiencing but the MRA doctor told me that it takes 48 hours to totally sink in and it's not quite been 24.
One thing that really surprised me was how accomodating Dr. Meyers and Marcia were when I was there. Dr. Meyers is in high demand as anyone who has gone through this knows. He gave me real quality time on relatively short notice and then Marcia went out of her way to schedule me for the additional tests that same day while I was there, totally unscheduled and only because of the symptoms I described in the office visit.
Of course the real question is "will I eventually be better" and only time will tell and of course I will report again.
WILL