Hi Carol, I haven't been on the board in a long time, but Cardie emailed me about your post--I'm glad she did or I would have missed it.
I remember your situation well--isn't it absolutely sickening when PT does stupid things that harm our otherwise great hip replacement?????? I have been through a lot all because of post op PT having their agenda that didn't listen to my complaints that it was too much. Idiots!!!!! Jo has said many times that hips kind of heal themselves and you don't have to go crazy with exercises during the early post op period, and I truly believe that--my first hip is testament to that. I did reasonable exercises with that one and things went very smoothly and I love that hip. Yes, muscles need to be strengthened ... but it's really not that tough to rehab a hip, and you certainly don't have to work to the point of severe pain and injury to get there. Absolutely wrong and ridiculous!!! But, unfortunately there are PTs out there who have crazy beliefs that can hurt patients--we both are examples of that.
Fortunately, my surgeon never doubted that I had pain and something wrong. He did have a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that it happened the first couple of days post op at the hospital and investigated and ruled out everything else under the sun before he could finally believe that the pain was simply overworked and injured tendons and muscles caused by PT. He also had me see a sports med ortho in their practice to get his opinion--that Dr. agreed that it was tendon/muscular. I also saw two other orthos on my own and got the same opinions.
Unfortunately, it hasn't been an easy time to try to get all this straightened out. At around 10 or so months post op, when it became very clear that this wasn't going to heal completely with conservative measures, my surgeon did an adductor longus tendon release surgically and also a hip arthroscopy to look at everything else in and around the hip. In addition to the adductor muscle being damaged, he also did some repair/clean up work on the psoas and the rectus femoris--I don't know exactly what the damage was there, but he has some pictures I'll get to see at my upcoming office visit. He thought the surgery went well ... but then I developed a large hematoma around the adductor longus area that he had hoped would reabsorb with time, but it became clear that this wasn't going to happen because it kept getting larger. A week after the first surgery, he performed a surgical hematoma evacuation which has knocked me on my butt and it's going to take a long time to recover from that. But, I'm feeling a little better every day, so I have hope that will heal fine and move on.
The wound is in a difficult place (up high in the crotch area, where he did the original adductor longus release cut) and the evacuated hematoma space inside is large and drains a lot (it's not a nasty drainage, so I think it's basically a healthy wound trying to heal. I have a Wound Vac machine hooked up to me 24/7 and a dressing that needs to be changed ideally 3x per week. We have a hard time making the dressing stick because of the location and sometimes the home nurse has to come out in between the scheduled dressing changes to redo it. But, I think we have come up with a wound dressing/drape and liquid adhesive combo that is working pretty well. The regular dressings/drape typically used with the Wound Vac doesn't stay on for more than a few hours without springing a leak. My surgeon is providing me with a super tacky/sticky flexible drape that is used in the OR during surgeries that is working better, as well as a liquid adhesive (also an OR product) that goes around the wound/dressing edges that helps it stick MUCH better than the regular Wound Vac dressings/drape material. The nurses are becoming more experienced with using these things and discovering what makes my dressing stick ... so things are going better as time goes by. The home care nurses think it will be another 3 weeks or so before the drainage has slowed enough to ditch the wound vac. I see my surgeon this coming Thursday and I'll get his opinion about how things are healing and if we need to change the treatment plan. Although it certainly hasn't been a pleasant experience to go through, I have accepted that this is the way things are and am taking things one day at a time.
I am SO sorry that you are being blown off by your doctors! I know that would have been intolerable for me--it's bad enough to have the injuries and the additional pain/limitations in the first place, but to have the doctor(s) ignore your concerns would have been "it" for me. I can't imagine going through that too.
I do encourage you to continue to look for an ortho who will take your situation seriously. You may have to go to some place like a teaching hospital or an excellent surgeon who has the reputation for fully investigating problems AND then solving the problem. Don't give up! And, don't be afraid to be assertive in your discussions with these doctors. You need a very experienced ortho, and don't give up until you find that doctor.
Dorothy
United States
