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THR 50 year old male's recovery

Back off bud.. Not to be snarky but every day that you have pain think of ( or have documented) the prior days exercise.. And downsize the next outing! Repeat till you get just a little ache the day after. The day after should not be a hangover.

Been there done that! Sometimes there is a disconnect between what we want in our head and what the hip is happy with.. Stay fit with upper body stuff!
 
Take a chicken and pull it’s leg out sideways. Look at how the tendons tear. That is an analogy of what has happened to you. You need time to heal!

To give you hope, six months out I was in holiday and back to most activities. My hip did let me know when I had overdone it and still does but 3 months and six months out you will notice differences and golf should be no problem.
 
You’re not far out, at all. It’s going to hurt for another month or 2. I’m 12 weeks out n I still get sore after exercise. But it’s so much better. They jacked you up during the surgery. Heaven knows what they do to dislocate your hip. I still have a little bit of swelling in my ankle. Take it slow n steady b
 
Thank you all. It really is great to have a resource like this forum. I wish I would have seen this before surgery.
This morning I woke up and I’m very sore in the butt of the operated hip and the hip flexors. Can light foam rolling help this?
The morning is my worst time for this. As an active person my mind tells me to go for a walk or stretch this leg but I feel like this is wrong for this particular recovery. Has anyone else experienced the morning as their toughest time of day? Both my surgeon and pharmacist insist that the four week mark is no time to ‘be a hero’. Take pain medication and let it heal. They both seem to believe that suffering with pain will slow down the ability to heal.
It has been very beneficial for me to hear others on here talk about which windows led to the best jumps in recovery. I have to believe the first 4 weeks being over is good news and that 4 more weeks will be that super window for advancement. If anyone else can talk about when they started to consistently realize the muscle soreness/pain was going away that’d be great.
By the way, not sure I ever stated it but my surgery was anterolateral. He did this because he said he wasn’t worried about a fast recovery he wanted a thorough result that would not dislocate when I went back to activity. He also said he may have had issues anteriorly to get through the muscles and he may have ended up really stressing some muscles and nerves.
Thanks again. Really enjoy reading your input.
 
Think the clue is in your last paragraph! Mine was Posterior and took a while to recover from. I have diaried the whole thing on here! Seriously 3 months was a milestone and I had set myself back a few times by joining the ODIC and straining muscles and tendons by walking too far, missteps etc. It is so easily done.

1 Year in not perfect but so much better than pre-op. Hang in there!
 
toughstuff said:
Take pain medication and let it heal. They both seem to believe that suffering with pain will slow down the ability to heal.
Click to expand...
This is absolutely true. Trying to tough it out is totally counter productive.

I used a foam roller post LTHR for piriformis pain. Really helped! And yes, mornings are the toughest part of the day for most new hippies. Stiff and sore - but get icing and take your medication. You soon warm up and can increase your mobility.
 
Butting in again (pardon the pun) but doing someof the stretching excersising in bed such as pressing knees into the bed and stretching the back and pelvis and squeezing and holding g glutes all helps prior to getting up. The tennis ball in the butt feeling goes eventuallybut I remember thinking it was a big nuisance.
 
toughstuff said:
They both seem to believe that suffering with pain will slow down the ability to heal.
Click to expand...

We tend to be less mobile while in pain. Effective pain management will keep you moving and as the old saying goes "motion is lotion".

I hope today is a good one!
@toughstuff
 
The super window for advancement, it's not like that. Here's what happens, you start feeling a lot better so it becomes like the redneck that says hold my beer and watch this. It's more like jumping out of a window. My experience was at 3 mos I felt great and thought I'm back! Took 1 day of trying to catch up on work around the house which included working on a ladder. Took 3 weeks of back to the recliner and ice to recover to where I was before the setback. As soon as you start thinking you've gone through the super window it's the thinking that gets you.
 
Interesting finding..... I live in a relatively small town with a big hospital. I saw my surgeon today at a restaurant and he spent 10 minutes talking to me about my recovery. He said you are at 4 weeks for recovery and your glutes hurt. That is because I "bluntly separated" your gluteus maximus and retracted your gluteus medius for quite awhile. Those will not just bounce back he said. He did think that the typical recovery for the maximus was around 8 weeks post op and stated that it was the largest muscle in the body. He also said it is huge for stability and used a lot when walking uphill.
It was a quick lesson in functionality and recovery.
 
Nice to know what REALLY happens in surgery! :yikes:. Seriously, knowing the truth helps immensely to understand why this particular surgery has the type of recovery period it does. I'm 3 months out from a posterior approach and doing great with everything except my gluteus medius. Actually because I had OA for so long before my op ALL my glutes atrophied, something you don't have I'm sure as a fit bloke! But the op manipulation of those muscles really takes its toll, and soft tissue just takes time time and more time to heal. Your patience muscle is the hardest to get on top of I'm afraid. :heehee:

Hopefully you'll ease up and go with the flow for another couple of weeks and see just how well you recover. It really is the less you do at first, the more you can do faster - a bit later. :thumb:
 
@toughstuff I loved what your surgeon explained to you. Makes so much more sense, now, doesn't it?
You are doing pretty darn good for a 4 weeks timeline! :flwrysmile:

I found that the next 4 weeks gave me some nice little improvements on a more regular basis.. but then it's hard not to over do and set things back. That's where I am, deliberately deciding whether to walk more and push things, rather than rest and ice and not prove to myself that I can do more. Increasing activities in small increments will give the biggest rewards later.. wishing you the best in the next weeks of recovery.
 
Just a quick note, @toughstuff, to say that mornings are the roughest for me, both with this replacement (#2) and certainly with #1 as well. I am a week ahead of you, so heading into my 6th week and feeling hopeful. I was in reasonably good shape before my surgeries and I do think, for me, it has contributed to an easier recovery. But that doesn't mean it has been lightening fast or always easy. My surgeon doesn't allow any PT before 6 weeks, but I'm hoping to get a referral to PT when I have my check up next week. I actually think PT, if done slowly and effectively with a trained and sensitive individual can be super helpful. But, there a lot of not very good therapists out there and PT too early and with a poor therapist can be miserable. Hang in there, it will get better--but definitely exercising those "patience muscles" is something to focus on for the immediate future.

I do think getting up and moving slowly when you first get up will help--it does for me--just enough to get yourself straightened up and moving. No fast walks or exercise! Initially when I wake up I'm feeling pretty rough and early on I'd retreat immediately to a chair with that all-important ice pack. But my husband actually suggested that I get up and move around slowly instead for a short while, and it was effective. Try different things, give yourself permission to ease more gently into your day. 2020 is going to be great for all of us, I think. Happy Sunday!
 
Hello and Happy Sunday to you!
I love the impromptu meeting with your surgeon. It sounds much more informative than some office visits can be. His detailed description sure gives a better understanding as to why you feel the way you do. Much of this information would be nice to have beforehand so our expectations weren't as high in early recovery. Possibly it's TMI for some, but for me personally, I find it beneficial. At one month post op you're doing well. Keep it up and enjoy the day!
@toughstuff
 
Today is 5 weeks since surgery and it was a beautiful, cool day.

I decided to try to take two walks in my neighborhood. The first one was 3/4 mile on flat ground, no issue while walking. The second was about 4 hours later in my cul de sac and again I did about 3/4 mile in a large circular pattern, no issue while walking. About an hour later my hip area is so sore. Hip flexors and butt are very sore.

Any reason for concern? I sleep fine and move fine but get sore afterward. To the point that you need to take Tylenol or sometimes even something stronger.
 
No, there is no reason for concern other than you need to stop pushing yourself to walk more than your body is ready for at this point in your recovery.

Since this happened today, it is obvious the second walk was more than you should have attempted. So, IF your pain is better tomorrow try one 3/4 mile walk. Then if you go 24 hours with little or no pain, the next day you could either increase the length of the walk slightly (one mile or less) or do two separate walks that increase the overall time just slightly. If you experience soreness with just the one 3/4 mile flat walk, rest until there is no pain and cut it back to 1/2 mile. You must find a balance where you walk and do not experience significant pain in the 24 hours afterwards.
 
Hi @toughstuff
Sounds about par for the course for one month out. :yes:
Soreness and Tightness is a normal occurrence after this kind of major surgery. Your surgeon did major carpentry work and disturbed every millimeter of soft tissue in this area. You aren't tight because your muscle is underused and needs to be stretched and rehabbed. You're tight because your tissue is healing...and full healing takes quite a bit of time. If a long full step right now is causing pain and limping, don't take long full steps. Take smaller steps. Take a short walk several times a day, instead of longer walks. Use your cane. Use ice. Rest a lot.
When we are past the initial surgical incision healing, and generally are starting to feel reasonable again....we are itching to get back to their lives....to get on with their lives. To be active. And a lot of us are so driven to be active again, that we promptly overdo it as soon as we start to resume some activities.

So really, this isn't the time to do anything to excess. Baby steps now, and lots of patience, pays off big time later. Recovering from self-induced tendinitis can end up taking weeks or months. Or you can consider yourself as still recovering from surgery and structure your return to your life as a slow, gradual process where you introduce very small increments in activity, and then give yourself time to see how your body reacts to it. Your body is in charge of healing, not your mind. You can't will yourself to heal faster. But you can stay out of your own way to let the healing happen.
It does get better!:ok:
 
What are the symptoms of the tendinitis? Hoping I haven’t self induced something like that.
I’m really hoping to see improvement in this recovery over the next week or two. Everything I’ve read states that soft tissue will heal in 6-8 weeks.
 
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