Met yesterday with the office of Dr. Brian White in Denver, who studied under Philippon in Vail. Looked at the MRI (w/o report, not yet available) that I got last Saturday and thought I had labral tear in left hip with possible impingement, confirmed when I looked at my MRI report later that day.
The findings: "Hip morphology which could predispose the patient to cam-type FAI. There is fraying and degeneration of a diminutive anterosuperior and superior left acetabular labrum. There is focal partial detachment of the anterosuperior labrum. There is mild chondral softening and surface fibrillation at the superolateral left hip joint."
Some background: last February, ’16, I was biking home from class when my wheels went out from under me and I landed directly onto my left hip. It hurt pretty bad, and I was out for a month, and was able to cross-train. Once I got back to running, my hip became sore again, and I got an MRI, which had no significant findings. I was soon asymptomatic and back to running.
Fast forward to August, I pulled my right glute after a track workout and was told by a PT it's bc my left hip was weak. I began to do bodyweight exercises on both sides (lateral hip movements, etc), which made my left side sore especially. I wasn’t running at the time, to let the right glute heal.
I went on a hike september 25 in and my hip is has been in pain ever since. Did everything you’re supposed to do: rest, ice, massage, physical therapy, all that. Bike has been tolerable at best. Elliptical is painful. Pool running makes my left hip sore after a while. Walking is ok at the best. The last time I tried to get back to running the pain was waking me up at night. At least now I know why.
I have a follow up with Dr. White in a few weeks. My running coach is doing everything he can to talk me out of surgery, citing the examples of a few of his runners who had labral tears and were able to manage symptoms with conservative treatment, and given the invasive nature inherent to surgery. Also, he says that because surgeons are a hammer everything looks like a nail to them. I don’t know what to think.
I'm willing to go the conservative route, but it hasn't worked so far. And after doing conservative hip exercises is when the onset of pain began? And it seems like a lot of people with labral tears are able to cross-train without too much pain. I’m not.
I'm no doctor, of course, but if I had to guess the labral tear was caused by the impingement, and the impingement was caused by the bike crash. And I’ve read that impingements can only be corrected through surgery.
I just want to get back to running and want the pain to go away. There are risks of doing surgery, but there are risks in not doing it. I really don't want to get hip arthritis.
Thoughts? Advice? Admonishments? Trolling? Runners in CO who have had this injury?