I find it hard to tell my story without going to the very beginning, so bear with me. When I was nearly two years old it was discovered that I had been born with congenital hip dysplasia. At 20 months I underwent an open reduction to repair the dysplasia on my right side. The left side was "fixed" with a closed reduction. (I wore a special harness, apparently I didn't like it) I then wore a body cast for several weeks and then had different braces that I wore I think until around 3 years of age. I don't really remember any of this, I have seen pictures and I remember crawling with a brace on, but that is it.
As a child I was as active as any other and only remember leg pains that my mom called "growing pains." In junior high and high school I went out for almost all the sports, except track. I still hate running. In high school when I was 15 I must have complained about left hip pain because we went to a follow up visit to the physician that had treated me 13 years before. It wasn't too bad though because I never went back and never saw another doctor until I was in college. I decided to see a D.O. because I liked their philosophy of treating the body through manipulations. It seemed to help for a while, but then it didn't so I was referred to a different D.O. who discovered my left leg was shorter than the right and this lead to a rather large muscle hump on my left. He set me up with a heel lift and I did really well for a long time. Then in 2006 I became pregnant with my son, Caleb. The pregnancy was pretty uneventful and I didn't experience too much pain that I can remember. I ended up having a C-section for many reasons none related to my hip, but we both came through just fine.
After Caleb was born and in this past year though my left hip has gotten worse. I don't really have pain so much as it locks up on me. (I like to deny this but I just had to bend down to clean up spilled milk and almost didn't make it back up!) The final straw was in Februrary when I had bent over to tie my shoes to go to the gym, when I stood up I had a sharp pain and my left hip locked up and I couldn't put any weight on it. I toughed it out and went to the gym anyways, as I was working out on the elliptical I had no pain, but when I sat down in my car, sharp pain again. This continued for the next day until it magically went away. This episode lead my D.O. to send me in for an M.R.I. which showed cysts and a possible tear in my left hip. He then sent me to an O.S. in Des Moines for an evaluation.
As a child I was as active as any other and only remember leg pains that my mom called "growing pains." In junior high and high school I went out for almost all the sports, except track. I still hate running. In high school when I was 15 I must have complained about left hip pain because we went to a follow up visit to the physician that had treated me 13 years before. It wasn't too bad though because I never went back and never saw another doctor until I was in college. I decided to see a D.O. because I liked their philosophy of treating the body through manipulations. It seemed to help for a while, but then it didn't so I was referred to a different D.O. who discovered my left leg was shorter than the right and this lead to a rather large muscle hump on my left. He set me up with a heel lift and I did really well for a long time. Then in 2006 I became pregnant with my son, Caleb. The pregnancy was pretty uneventful and I didn't experience too much pain that I can remember. I ended up having a C-section for many reasons none related to my hip, but we both came through just fine.
After Caleb was born and in this past year though my left hip has gotten worse. I don't really have pain so much as it locks up on me. (I like to deny this but I just had to bend down to clean up spilled milk and almost didn't make it back up!) The final straw was in Februrary when I had bent over to tie my shoes to go to the gym, when I stood up I had a sharp pain and my left hip locked up and I couldn't put any weight on it. I toughed it out and went to the gym anyways, as I was working out on the elliptical I had no pain, but when I sat down in my car, sharp pain again. This continued for the next day until it magically went away. This episode lead my D.O. to send me in for an M.R.I. which showed cysts and a possible tear in my left hip. He then sent me to an O.S. in Des Moines for an evaluation.
No comments:
Post a Comment