Seeing My Hip Doctor (or Looking Cute In A Hospital Gown)

Last Friday, I finally went in to see my hip surgeon. I had been pretty anxious for this appointment as I’ve been feeling pain in both the hip I had operated on as well as the hip that needs to be fixed.

I also wanted to ask my surgeon about the pain I feel when I’m doing the standing up work in spin class.

As soon as I got to the appointment, I was sent to get my x-rays.

I had to get two different x-ray views. The first was pretty easy. I was laying on the x-ray table with my toes pointed in. It took a few tries to get a good x-ray, but it was easy enough to pose like that. The second pose was super awkward. The x-ray tech put a stool on the x-ray table and I had to put my legs and feet on it. Then I had to keep my feet together and my knees out. I’m glad that I had a female x-ray tech because the hospital gown did not cover much when I was in that pose!

After the x-rays were done, I took a shot showing how awesome I looked in the hospital gown.

After my x-rays were all done, I got dressed again and went back to the regular waiting room to wait to see my doctor.

I was finally called in, and I have to admit the room was a little scary looking to me.

It was nice to see my surgeon again. I had my hip surgery in 2006, and I haven’t seen my surgeon since my 1 year post op appointment. We spent the first few minutes catching up, and then it was time to look at my x-rays.

The x-rays looked good. My right hip is showing no signs of early onset arthritis (I’m at high risk for that). And on my left hip, you can see the bone spur that is causing me pain (I had one on my right hip too, but that was removed in surgery).

Then it was time for the physical exam part of the appointment. My surgeon moved my legs around to do full range of motion of my hips to find out where my pain was.

The outcome of my appointment: there is no reason I should be having pain in my right hip. Therefore there is nothing I can do for it. And my left hip is showing signs that surgery will be needed. But it’s not urgent now. The next step for me would be to get an MRI to see the damage, but I’m not going to do that now. My surgeon suggested waiting until the pain is much worse before I do the MRI.

Overall, the appointment was almost all positive news. The negative news was about spinning. My surgeon said that if something is causing me pain in spin class, I shouldn’t be doing it. It’s ok if the pain is after class, but when it’s pain in class that is not good.

I’m glad that I saw my surgeon last week. I’ve been really nervous about the pain I’ve been feeling, and now I know that I haven’t been doing damage to my body. I have a timeline in my head when I want to go ahead with the MRI, but if I’m in a lot of pain before then, I’ll go ahead and do it. Having a plan makes me feel a lot better about a situation that I really don’t have control over.

And having a plan is really all I can do about this now.

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