I will be curious to see what your surgeon has to say about the LLD when you meet in person tomorrow.
Please let us know how it goes, if you don't mind sharing. I wish you all the best.
I had a long list of questions for my surgeon , consequently we ran out of time to go through them, so some items will need to be picked up in a future catch-up. Alot of information was provided, so please bear in mind, I may have missed some points while my brain processed understanding a specific peice of information, plus with the time limit, I still had some unanswered questions - its difficult in limited time to understand the full picture, partcularly when I lack basic knowledge.
LLD -
From the pelvic x-ray measurements the operated leg is 6mm longer, due to the implants. My perceived difference is something like 17mm. I have arthritis in my unoperated leg, so reduced cartledge there. My surgeon advised that my unoperated leg is not working as it should with reduced movement in the hip and most likely has a pelvis tilt that is pushing my unoperated leg joint slightly backwards,so when walking the leg is at a slight angle (which I don't notice) bringing in a reduced leg length perception (excluding the 6mm difference), whereas the operated one is now straight.
The surgeon wants me to walk without a shoe lift right now, to determine whether the walking gait sorts itself out as the hip muscles on both sides adjust. We had a debate about this, as walking without one , really means that I need to continue using the crutches as I am so unbalanced and it's impacting my ability to be able to go for a walk outside as its so uncomfortable. My operated hip is higher than the non operated one and when walking, I have to push it out to the left which is causing a twist in my back. If I walk without a crutch, I lurch from one side to the other as my centre of gravity is all wrong as I try to keep my operated leg straight and at times I can fall into just walking with a bended knee on my operated side, just so I can walk without lurching or twisting my body. When I put a lift in the shoe, I can walk properly, therefore will exercise more. We came to a comprimise on this, as I just wasn't convinced walking without a shoe lift was a good idea as I felt it could introduce other issues, so agreed to use a shoe life when walking outside, but a low one, and not to use one at home, then to review in a couple of months.
I am not comfortable with the explanation, although it is logical - I am not sure that it is the complete picture. When young I had operations on my knees to straighten them from knock-knees, so bone growth impacting and I have always suspected that my leg lengths were slightly difference from that anyway, due to the wear on my shoes, the operated leg being the longer one, though it would have been minor. I want to get to the bottom of this, for when I do have the right hip done, I need to have absolute certainty that everything will even up fully. We ran out of time, for me to raise this particular point.