Prolotherapy. What the !?!?! - 535 days post-op

Yes, yes, yes. I know. It’s been a while. 399 days in fact since I last posted here. I reckon I just got sick of talking about it and thinking about it. Hips, hips, hips. Sick of them. Bastards.

I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that my aches and pains were with me for good. I pull up sore after very light jogging, sitting or driving for extended periods is terrible, especially in the right groin, mountain biking was a killer, and sleeping can be very hit and miss. Over the past 76 weeks since surgery it has worn me down to the stage where I thought the surgery I had to repair my hips had been a waste of time. And until yesterday I had still remained unconvinced. I may still be.

Months ago a friend of a friend suggested I needed to address my pain. She is a nurse practitioner who works in the treatment of chronic pain. By the way, a nurse practitioner is a registered nurse educated to a master’s degree level and authorised to function autonomously and collaboratively in an advanced and extended clinical role. Regina has had FAI herself and had surgery and is functioning ok now. Not perfect but ok.

Anyhoo, she suggested I should first discuss medication with my GP, which I did. A course of Lyrica was the upshot from that and it did nothing but make me groggy. The next step she suggested was to head down to Melbourne to the Metropolitan Spinal (Pain) Clinic with who she has had many dealings in her profession. After convincing my GP this was the go, off I went. Yesterday.

The specialist in Melbourne I ended up seeing was a fella named Dr Bruce Mitchell. Bruce has an extensive Sports Medicine background (as a previous AFL club doctor) and has a special interest in the management of pelvic and groin pain. Bingo!

After an extensive discussion and physical examination he has diagnosed me with major pelvic instability. The ligaments, etc holding my pelvis together aren’t doing the job. He believes that this is what is causing all my hip, groin and lower back pain and has insisted that the longer I let it go the worse it will get and the further I will be away from resuming an active lifestyle. I asked him if I am reading too much into this and need to just put up with my aches and burning and pains and he insisted that I am not and should not. Thankfully he said I did the right thing having surgery last year to treat my FAI as he read my file and said my hip joints were a mess. That was strangely comforting as, as you know, I thought I'd wasted my time.

“Let’s go for the cure,” he said eventually after going through all the possibilities.

‘Dorsal Root Ganglion (DRG) Stimulation’was mooted as a treatment. DRG Stimulation is where they insert a neurostimulator system about the size of a pacemaker into my back and hook it up to my spinal cord. The idea is that it will regulate pain signals before they enter the spinal cord and travel to the brain. Stuff that!

He has recommended prolotherapy where he will inject dextrose into the three pelvic joints under sedation/general anaesthetic. This will apparently cause an inflammatory response at the joints which creates scar tissue and then thickens, tightens and strengthens the weak tissue, resulting in stronger ligaments and tendons.

It will be a course of 3 sets of injections 6 weeks apart with the first one booked in for Wednesday October 29. I have been advised that I can expect to be sore for several days following the injections. Apparently this is good as it means that an inflammatory reaction is occurring which should strengthen the ligament. I'm not allowed to take anti-inflammatories during this time which will be just super!

Yes the word "cure" was mentioned but I am not holding my breath. Over the past 12 years I've been treated for torn groin muscles, told I have vertebrae degeneration, sciatica and one leg longer than the other, treated for back related groin pain, possible osteitis pubis and thickening of the illiotibial band, operated on both hips for femoroacetabular impingements, had numerous x-rays, CT and MRI scans, cortisone injections into my hip joint and sacroiliac joint and spent seemingly thousands on physios, masseurs, physical therapists, orthopaedic surgeons and sports scientists. I'll go with this treatment but forgive me if I reserve my judgement on its success. Any improvement will be a bonus because I have had none so far.

As long as prolotherapy provides me with a measure of relief from my current pain and discomfort then I'll be happy as 40 is too young to be grinning and bearing my current situation.

To be continued…..

If you are reading this blog and have any thoughts or comments, good or bad, I would really appreciate it if you could add your comments after any of my posts. I feel like I am on my own with this and would love to hear from people in the same boat.

Dr. Cortisone ( or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Ache) - 136 days post-op

It's been a while since I checked in here. Three weeks in fact. To be honest I just got sick of whinging about the aches and pains I was, and still are, putting up with.

I've been receiving treatment on my hips and groins twice a week but I'm not sure it's doing much. I'm doing some stretching and a strengthening exercise too. Christ it's slow going though. I'm not getting anywhere. Still getting the aches and pains in the outer hip ranging down to my calves at times. So I've decided what will be will be. I've tried my best.

A few weeks ago the exercise physiologist I'm seeing suggested I go back to see my surgeon John O'Donnell to investigate the possibility of adhesions on my right side. It's where the scar tissue adheres or sticks to the repaired muscle. Happens in lots of different surgery according to my sister, an ER nurse. It can be very painful. It would require a simple surgery to correct it.

Once again I drove down to Melbourne to see John (via Portarlington for a job - 2.5 hours in the car). He didn't seem overly concerned. Why would you when you pick up $100 for 3 minutes?

Anyhoo, he thought I had inflammation that could be treated with an x-ray guided cortisone injection. I organised one with Lake Imaging in Ballarat and had it today, however they used a CT scan to do the guiding.

It was a strange experience. They took some shots of my hip, put a grid on my hip then took another shot and took some measurements. The needle stung a bit as it went in and through the joint capsule, but once the local anaesthetic kicked in I barely felt anything as they pumped the steroid into my joint.

Apparently I will receive the full benefit of the cortisone in 7-10 days.......hopefully.

P.S. I'm an old Stanley Kubrick fan.

I feel like I'm getting worse - 114 days post-op

I have a very persistent pain/ache in the right groin, the side I had microfracture on. I bent down to pick something up this morning and it went ping.

Then I jumped in the car and felt nerve pain down the left leg straight away.

This is ridiculous. I seem to be getting worse.

I'm seeing Grant who is an exercise physiologist and he is extremely confident he'll sort me out. I'm not holding my breath at this stage.

I've got a simple exercise where I'm on all fours and I rotate my lower leg out. It's to build up my arse muscles from scratch.

I feel like I've stuffed up somehow by not doing enough but you can only do what you're told I suppose.

Hoping against hope - 108 days post-op

Incredibly my sister has had the same hip issues and subsequent surgery as I have. We didn't know we both had stuffed hips but she had surgery a couple of months before me.

Tamara had seemed to be taking it alot easier than me. She had been seeing a Physio and they'd thought she had an 'adhesion' they would require another arthroscope.

She went to Exercise Physiologist Grant McKechnie in Ballarat who she sees for her back, etc. Grant slowed her up and got stuck into her hips/pelvis to get rid of the nerve pain in her arse/hips/legs. She has been quite pleased with how she has been progressing after much frustration.

Being as frustrated as she was, I thought I'd go along too. Grant is hard to get in to see but Sis sorted that out for me.

I saw Grant last Friday. He was not impressed that is been told to ride the exercise bike with my hands on the handlebars. Nor was he keen on me swimming with the foam thing between my thighs unless my legs were tied together. Avoiding loading my hips is the go.

He agreed I've stagnated in my progress, or gone backwards. I explained that I was really annoyed at the lack of 'after sales service' after the surgery and by the limited knowledge around Ballarat on this type of surgery rehab.

Grant is certain he can sort me out and plans to start by alleviating the nerves and spasms in my lower back/arse/legs through hands on work. I'll hold him to that.

He got straight to it using hands and elbows to get stuck into my hips, groins and inner thighs.

I've been bloody sore this weekend despite taking a few Fenac 50mg anti inflamms. I don't know if it's because of Grant's work or of I'm just sore but it feels awfully similar to how I felt at my worst pre-op.

I'll keep hoping.

Not what I thought - 88 days post-op

I saw Simon Ellis at Lake Physio today to get my ‘final’ rehab program. I was really hoping for a plan that Amir Takla assured me would be coming my way. Something I could get stuck into for the next 6 months or something like that. I didn't get that.

My 'plan' for the next 3 weeks.

After asking me a series of questions regarding my surgery and history Simon got me to show him what I'd been instructed to do by Amir. I showed him a couple of the 'QF' exercises I'd been doing and explained I'd been riding the stationary bike and doing a little pool work. We chatted for a while while he rubbed away at my left quad/groin.

He did seem surprised when I explained that Amir had asked me to back off a bit. I was quite self conscious of the fact I've just floated along for the past 4-5 weeks in regard to rehab.

I was hoping for a definitive long term strategy that I could adhere to. It didn't come. He wants to see me again in 3 weeks and get some massage in the meantime. I found myself quite frustrated that Amir had led me down the garden path regarding what I could expect. To be honest, I just want someone to cut through the crap and tell me what I need to do long term.

Anyway, I'll get stuck into the stuff he has given me. Hell of a nice bloke, Simon, and it's not his fault but I'll go back to Clarkey and try to get some information/instructions directly from Amir. Too far to travel from Buninyong over to Wendouree.

If you are reading this blog and have any thoughts or comments, good or bad, I would really appreciate it if you could add your comments after any of my posts. I feel like I am on my own with this and would love to hear from people in the same boat.

MRI Results (or lack thereof) - 81 days post-op

Well the results are in from my MRI and I got ‘donuts’!

Before I start I must say my MRI referral was from my GP and therefore I was out of pocket around $300 for the scan. Bloody expensive but my thinking was I’ve come this far……

Anyway, they were looking into ‘lumbar pain radiating to the buttocks and left posterior thigh, discogenic or facet. Is this amenable to CT guided intervention?’

Discogenic. Sounds like the sort of pissed dancing I might have trotted out in the wee hours of a sticky-floored nightclub circa 1994.

The conclusions of the findings were ‘minor disc changes only with a small discogenic bar extending L4/5 postero-right laterally without causing nerve root displacement or compression. This does not appear to correspond to the left-sided nature of the patient’s symptoms and is of unlikely clinical concern.’

Bugger. The old night-time aches and pains of the lower back and pelvis/hips are well and truly back and I was hoping it was something they could treat in my lower back. Unfortunately this does not appear to be the case.

I have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that these aches will be with me for the foreseeable so the sooner I get my head around that and accept it the better.

As it is, the weekend just gone was a monstrous 3-day golf trip to Yarrawonga where, in between lengthy sessions at the bar, I played, and walked, two rounds of golf. The hips weren’t completely niggle free but they were good enough.

I am booked in to see Simon at Lake Physio to get my ‘final’ rehab program for the long term future on July 29. Should be interesting to see what he has in store for me.

This is my MRI report.


If you are reading this blog and have any thoughts or comments, good or bad, I would really appreciate it if you could add your comments after any of my posts. I feel like I am on my own with this and would love to hear from people in the same boat.