Labral Tear anyone??

[james]

Has anyone had a Labral tear?

Whilst commuting last July I got hit by a car which resulted in various injuries, one of which has been diagnosed as a Labral tear to the right hip. I had a MRI arthrogram earlier this week which appeared to support the Dr's prognosis, the next step appears to be an operation which will write off my year i.e. France training week, Hawaii 70.3, UK Ironaman and London Tri.

So if anyone has any experience of this type of injury are they able to provide an insight to recovery times, Dr says 4 weeks on crutches, 4 months off training, is that realistic?

[Sir Conehead]

Find out if an operation is total nesscary first, how badly is the labrum torn?

The 1st thing is injections and re-hab, an operation is the absolute last resort for this sort of thing. Surgery poses its own risks, so did they say you were probably going to have an op? Or was it more along the lines of if all else fails you'll have an op?

If you did this in July, with no real constuctive re-habillitation (ie 4 times a week) along with training around the hip - I'm not surprised if its no better. The treatment for this is usally (as mentioned) pretty intense re-hab/training, but without speaking to the doctor myself I have no idea why you're going under the knife rather than intensive re-hab/injections.

If you don't go under the knife then you should come to France to re-hab and follow a constructive programme.

As for recovery, everyone is different from surgery - could be 2-3 months or 6 months. But 'off training' means different things to different people, the type of re-hab we do with athletes you would probably view as training. So when you say '4 months off training' that doesn't mean do nothing for 4 months.

[Bopomofo]

Labral tear? Try Labral tears. Plural.

I've got a nice fat 20mm tear on my left side (confirmed by MRI and arthrogram - isn't THAT a lovely procedure?) and one of indeterminate size on my right.

I originally went to the Dr's after getting a HEEOOOOGE amount of pain in one and sometime both hips after a silly fall while running on stiff legs. My legs were stiff from doing a lot of sprinting - which I'm not used to - in a tag Rugby game while my legs were in turn still very sore and recovering from too many hill repeats. In short, silly on top of silly.

Turns out that this aggravated a tear which the surgeon suspects has been there for years. My femurs are the wrong shape, apparently. Rather than the keyhole 'in, glue and out again' surgery which you may have been recommended my surgery was scheduled to be... 20cm cut, saw off top of thigh bone, place on work bench and make femur correct shape with power tools, nail femur back on at a slightly different angle, glue up tear, stitch up and off for a round of golf. Predicted 3 months horizontal, 6 months before fully mobile, no sports for up to a year. Ta very much.

Work were supportive and said I could take the time out. Private medical cover would foot the bill. Everything looked good to go. Then I got wind of impending redundancies and had the choice: get in quick while I've still got private cover, or postpone it so I could look for a job. I went with the latter.

Why tell you all this? Well, I had a few months rest while my hips stopped hurting and I came to terms with the fact that I had a serious injury and no chance to get it fixed. I had also been having physio on a shoulder injury so I was pretty much out of action. Cycling was OK still, happily, so I could do something.

Then, I started swimming again as my shoulder improved. Gentle running came next, with no pain, followed by proper running. Hang on... no problems. I spoke to another surgeon who said.. "Rest must ALWAYS be the first course of action" and blow me down, he's right.

Fitness returned slowly, as ever, and I had no real goals to aim for as I'd obviously not booked in any races. Then, with just six weeks notice some Conical Craniumed tw*t who shall remain nameless (ahem) egged me on to enter a 70.3 early this year which I somehow survived.

Certain twisting movements cause a bit of a crunch, so I don't do that. Running fast up REALLY steep hills hurts too, so I don't do that. As I get to about half-marathon distance I start to get some pain, but I do it so rarely that I'm starting to wonder if extending my LSD runs might push the problem away.

I'm glad I didn't have surgery. Hips are complex things and you can be certain it will never be back to 100% after surgery and it could be a lot worse. One day I'm going to need artifical hips but in the meantime 'better the devil you know' has been a fully workable approach.

Sorry for droning on... I hope this helps.

[james]

Thanks for both your messages, the Dr I have been seeing has said that she is certain that the op is needed and has arranged for me to see a surgeon who has started to perform the procedure using key hole surgery. Pending the surgeon's assesment I maybe offered a MUA procedure instead of heading straight for the full blown op. When I suggested delaying or not having the surgery I was told that there was the risk of a stress fracture, which obviously worried the crap out of me.

Bopomofo - yeah the arthrogram was an interesting couple of hours!