Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Again, a huge gap in time, but Caitlin is now 20 years old and studying at university.

Over the past 12+ months, her pain levels have been increasing and a year ago, she had xrays and an MRI to see what was going on.  It was suggested at that stage that she have arthroscopic surgery to clean up the labral tear that was found, along with cysts in the joint.  Because her usual specialist was away, she was reluctant to proceed,  so deferred surgery until she had discussed it with him.

She returned home in July to see her specialist and he supported her decision and also that of the other specialist, actually recommending she stick with this other one, because his specialty is arthroscopic procedures on the hips.

The other day she had the appointment needed to look at what surgery would go ahead and was sent for more xrays, due to the time lapsed.  On reviewing the xrays, they look reasonably good as usual with reasonable joint spacing and no collapse of the femoral head thankfully.  However, her pain indicates secondary arthritis and the specialist felt that there was nothing that could be gained from surgery, so recommended steroid injections into the hip to see if she could have some relief from the pain.  She did not want to proceed with this, until he explained thoroughly what was involved and how it worked and was about to agree to it, until she casually mentioned her lack of hip extension and all the problems that caused her.

The whole appointment came to a halt as he checked the xrays and MRI, checked her ROM and stood there contemplating this new piece of information.  The end result is that arthroscopic surgery is now happening.  He is going to debride the joint and also do a tenotomy on the psoas and one other tendon (sorry, can't remember which one) to see if that gives her some relief from the pain and maybe, a bit more hip extension.

Her surgery is going to happen sometime between January 15th and the end of January, as she needs to return to university after that for her new year and also, she has to get her tonsils out too, so needs time to get that done before uni starts back up!

Really pleased this surgery is as minimally invasive as it is and could potentially make a world of difference for her - no guarantees as usual, but worth trying <3 font="">