Hip Pain - How do you manage? Any advice gratefully received.

[ipanemagirl]

I have been through the system and am not yet a candidate for hip replacement according to my consultant. He said I’m in the 20% who is likely to find an operation does not improve my life.

My problem is I do my exercises and walking and sometimes I am fine. But today I am in such sharp pain it is hard to walk. I feel like I’m secretly disabled. I’m very ashamed as I think it’s my fault for not exercising carefully enough over the years. Also I think menopause, injury, bad exercise, hyper mobility, three pregnancies and a bit of weight have contributed.

I don’t know how other people decide how to live with this kind of confounding, inconsistent pain.

any advice gratefully received. Psychologically this feels impossible at the moment.

Have you seen a physio?
I find pilates really helps. If you can find a physio who teaches pilates - you might find them to be a real help.

What age are you and why do they say it won't improve your life?

I'd had what i thought was groin strain for many years until I eventually went to gp and had xray and mri and was diagnosed with osteoarthritis. It was really bad by this point. I had physio and many different pain killers prescribed.

After struggling for another few years I had a hip replacement and life has been so much better. I was 40 when I had the surgery.

My consultant said that when you have no quality of life because of the pain then it's time to operate/replace the joint.

Have you had xray or mri? Have you had physio? Are they the exercises you do? I really feel for you as no one took me seriously because of my age until they got results of the xray/mri. I was at the doctors a lot about it because I had young children and couldn't do much it was awful. The pain was unbearable too. Make sure they know how bad it's impacting on your life.

The exercises helped me but It became impossible to do them because of the pain during and afterwards, no matter how much pain relief I was taking (morphine etc).

What's the diagnosis?

What's the basis for saying surgery won't help?

Thank you. I’m a little over 60 and lost my job over a year ago - it was a restructure and I think my hip issues (which were not as bad then) contributed to my being made redundant.

My physio’s exercises help a great deal - but sometimes too much activity (long walks) can leave me in very sharp pain like today; then I need to rest a bit and build up activity again. Sometimes my physio works so hard on me that I am really sore afterwards. My consultant seemed to look as if he thought she might be too rough. I think she was last time - but what do I know.

It’s incredibly inconsistent and hard to judge. I really need to get back to work but I don’t know what I can say that I can do? I don’t know whether I’m able bodied any more if that makes sense. I think I have a lot of shame around limping as well. I feel about 100 years old sometimes.

It makes me feel very very low. I don’t know who I am any more if I can’t walk properly. I miss work very much.

The consultant said I wasn’t bad enough yet for replacement because sometimes I’m ok. He said I had to ‘live my life’ which is good advice but fairly vague!

thank you for your advice. It’s nice to know that other people have come through. I think I really need a boost of some kind maybe to motivate me not to give up!

Twatting 💕

i think it is arthritis and some loss of the padding around the hip ‘ball’. General inflammation.

my sister thinks if I stopped eating carbs and ate an anti inflammatory diet then I might get better. I guess the advice from different schools of thought seems a bit contradictory. I’m a little bit overweight but not very much.

I feel very defeated though - so I need to find the confidence to overcome this but it’s hard to know what to point myself at.

making plans is so hard. Also how can you job hunt if you don’t know how to describe your mobility?

Have they done x-rays to confirm it's osteoarthritis?

If it is, I think you need to big up the symptoms or try and find a different consultant.

I'm 58 and have just had hip replacement surgery which has been great.

Yes I’ve had x rays and an mri.

Did you go privately?

Amitryptiline is really good for nerve pain, very few side effects and has a cumulative effect after a short amount of time, have you tried it?

Yes, I went privately but I went down the NHS route in parallel and could have had the surgery with them as well.

Out of interest what is your Vitamin D level? Being low can certainly cause hip/bone pain intermittently and is easily fixable. You might be having two different pain causes for the one area iyswim.

Thank you all!
pink yellow - did you go privately because the waiting list was prohibitive?
if you don’t mind me asking?

I'm hypermobile and while I'm not yet at the point you are, getting my weight down from just a bit overweight has made a huge difference to my general hip and leg pain levels.

Also agree with PP about vitamin D. My hip started to get very sore around Christmas, triggered by sitting on a chair that is slightly too high for me (many are, as I'm rather short limbed!) I did a finger prick test which indicated that I'm slightly deficient. The pain is starting to improve with the highest dose OTC supplement I could find.

You poor thing, I can really relate. I also had to give up work and many hobbies and like I say I had young children and I'd take them to school and wouldn't be able to walk back home as the pain would come on all of a sudden. I felt like I had nothing to talk about except my pain and it really did make me depressed.

It's ok them saying "live your life" but it sounds like this is impacting on you to the point where your not really able to. I was also scared to make plans because I would often have to cancel on people because of the pain.

Really let the consultants know how bad it is for you. Don't let the shame you described stop you from communicating just how much this is hurting and impacting on your life. Feeling 100 years old is exactly how I felt and I was in my 30s. I felt so low and ended up on various anti depressants because of it. I also felt so embarrassed and pretended it wasnt as bad as it was for a long time. I really do feel for you, sorry if I've rambled on.

No, I went privately because I wanted a specific surgeon that my friend had used and highly recommended and he was amazing.
I had gone down the NHS route in parallel, partly because I thought I could use this surgeon via the NHS but it wasn't possible.
By the time my head was ready to do the op privately I could also have done it with the NHS, but it can take up to a year on the NHS from being approved to actually having the surgery.

Thank you so so much for these kind replies! I do feel very isolated as people don’t realise that it’s not a simple condition and nor are the solutions simple.

I keep thinking I could try to reduce my weight but it’s so hard when I’m this low and I have houseful of carb hungry young ones. But not impossible. I think I am much lower and frightened than I want to admit.

Also how is that hope replacements seem to be so successful? The whole hip system seems such a complex area. I find it hard to understand how they succeed when there is so much at play.

I don't know if you get much choice in the NHS about how they do the operation but it is worth researching the different approaches that surgeons use.
The end result is normally very good whatever approach is used but the amount of pain, bruising, swelling in the first few days, weeks, months can vary hugely.

I would try and have the Direct Anterior approach to minimise pain, bruising etc but many surgeons in UK only do the Posterior approach which cuts through lots of muscles, flesh etc resulting in pain, bruising, swelling etc.

Pink yellow - you had the anterior approach?

Yes

I have osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. There's always someone who tells you that if you took (insert snake oil) or followed a specific diet ( insert current fad) you'd be cured.

My right hip has been painful for some time but is a long way off the bar for replacement. At times I need a stick and at other times I can move fine.
Generally with joints I find you have to get the happy medium between inactivity and movement. I got a medical referral to a gym and a coaching session on what exercises to strengthen the muscles around the hip without aggravating it.

I found Naproxen with Esomeprazole particularly helpful whilst I was waiting for my hip replacement, which I had done at 45.

I have RA and severe bursitis in both knees and hips.
I do find that wearing flat, supportive shoes with thick, shock absorbing soles makes a big difference to my hip pain. I wear crocs sliders in the house all the time, not thin soled slippers or bare feet. The light weight, cushioning soles are ideal. Comfort takes priority over style these days.

Feel free to ignore what I am about to share as it is entirely anecdotal however....I have suffered with significant hip pain for some years. Nothing has helped and I was just trying my best to live with it. I started taking collagen for my hair and nails and within a month of starting, my hip pain has completely gone. It can only be the collagen, literally the only thing that has changed. It's quite remarkable and has changed my life, most specifically in terms of getting some sleep.

As I say, completely anecdotal but I wish someone had suggested I tried it years ago!

I've had both hips replaced, one in 2012
( 57yrs) and one in 2024 (69 years). I went through various remedies including insoles for my left shoe ( to make both legs same length). Nothing helped and I suffered terrible groin pain after sitting in the same position for a time (e.g. on a bus) then standing. I was put on the list when I said the pain woke me at night. Both operations were very successful, much more so than knees, which I've heard can be very tricky. I suggest you probe further into why it is thought the replacement won't help.