I'm not sure if I am just so tired I couldn't fully function during the appointment, or if I'm just out of words. I felt like I just sat there the whole time and stared off into space and nodded my head. Obviously I have a lot going on in my mind at any given time, and some of it is stuff I would hope to be able to discuss with my orthopedist. Yet, I said virtually nothing, probably because I was too tired and knew it wouldn't make a difference. Sweet surrender.
So apparently there is still a tear in my labrum. I am unsure whether it is a new tear or part of the old tear or what. My orthopedist only seemed to care about the fact that the area where he had repaired the labrum was intact and the anchor was still in the bone. At the last appointment, he seemed most worried about the possibility that the anchor had come out, which in a weird sort of way might have been the best thing. Based on what Dr. Google told me, surgery to remove a loose anchor wouldn't be a huge deal and could offer significant pain relief. But that's not what it is, so it doesn't matter.
Since I didn't feel like my orthopedist was offering me any useful information, and mostly seemed intent on convincing me that it wasn't his fault that my hip still hurts (not that I'm even blaming him), I asked his MA for a copy of the report so I could read it myself. It says:
(T)here appears to be a recurrent tear of the anterosuperior labrum, across the labral base. (...) The tear is positioned just posterior to the acetabular anchor, involving the anterior aspect of the superior labrum and the superior aspect of the anterior labrum. (...) The superior labrum is relatively large, potentially hypertrophied due to the relatively poor coverage of the superior femoral head by the relatively small acetabulum. (...)
IMPRESSION: Recurrent right acetabular labral tear at the junction between anterior and superior labrum. The tear passes beneath labral base, just posterior to the labral anchor.Honestly, I don't know what I think about any of this. I don't have any energy to even think about what I think about it. I'm so tired of thinking about it.
In other news:
- The report also states: 'A large-field-of-view coronal sequence shows a large myometrial mass that measures approximately 5 cm in diameter, is very similar to the prior study, and is likely to represent a uterine fibroid.' Good to know. LOL. Honestly, when I started to read the report and it was talking about uterine fibroids, I thought I had the wrong report. I would hope that if this were a significant finding, someone would have mentioned it to me by now; nonetheless, I consulted Dr. Google about uterine fibroids, just to make sure. Apparently they are 'normal' and don't usually cause any symptoms, and I don't have any of the possible symptoms listed, so it's just one of those things.
- Ever since my arthrogram, my left hip has been hurting a lot. I know that it is 'just' trochanteric bursitis, and that it comes and goes, and is probably related to how my right hip is feeling and how much I am limping. I'm not usually too concerned about it because I have my right hip to worry about and I can't worry about two hips at once. (Remember, I have a ridiculously low stress threshold.) However, it has been very painful for about a week, to the extent that I have been icing it many times a day to try to manage the pain. And, it actually hurts worse than my other hip at this point, which has not been the case in a long time. Dr. Google told me the best treatment for severe bursitis was a cortisone injection, and my orthopedist agreed. He said that unlike the cortisone injection into the joint, it was no big deal to inject the bursa, and there were usually very good results. I said I didn't feel like an injection was necessary just yet but would consider it if this episode didn't resolve itself like the other ones have. At any rate, he told me that pain in my bursa was 'a much better problem' than pain in my hip joint; he had definite solutions for bursitis (and I totally believe him, because every time he has told me everything is going to be awesome, he has been right </sarcasm>). He prescribed a cream (another one!) for it, one that I could pick up at a local pharmacy, and said that if it wasn't better in six weeks I should come back and have a cortisone injection.
- I also have a touch of bursitis on my right side, although it's not nearly as bad as on my left side. The doctor did say that if I had the right side injected as well, he would recommend doing one side at a time. So apparently it's not a completely painless procedure.
- Whatever. I have no plans for injections anywhere in my near future. (I'll wait until I'm in complete agony. LOL.)
- The doctor also mentioned that he thought physical therapy could help the bursitis, 'if you're up for it.' I said I felt like PT is what started the bursitis in the first place, to which he replied, 'Okay, never mind.' I said that in the past, these 'flares' usually calmed down on their own, though I was starting to worry that the current one was my left hip starting to go downhill. His reply: 'No, that's not allowed.' If only it were that easy.
- Speaking of PT, on the way out I popped in to say hello to my physical therapist. We had a cordial conversation and he said he was sorry he didn't have any ideas to help me. Then he mentioned that there were huge changes in the future, as their practice was 'partnering' with (i.e., getting bought by) a major healthcare system. Interesting. And sad. I mentioned in a previous post that I've always been drawn to small practices, and oftentimes, solo practitioners. It is sort of depressing to me that even this major orthopedic group is being bought out, as the group in its current state is already really big and impersonal.
- Also sort of on the subject of PT, last night in my EMT class, we practiced applying traction splints for broken femurs (which is something we will be tested on but never use in real life, according to our instructors). However, when it was my turn to be the fake patient and have the traction splint applied to me, it felt so good I actually volunteered to be the fake patient a second time. I've had my leg pulled on a few times before in PT, so maybe there is something to it.
- I mentioned that I still hadn't received the pain cream we had talked about. The MA gave me a number to call, and I actually did. Apparently my insurance doesn't cover snake oil produced at sketchy compounding pharmacies in Southern Mississippi, so they never sent it. (You'd think they could have just told me that a month ago.) I'm not opposed to paying for things out of pocket, depending on how much I think they will help and how expensive they are, but based on my experiences with this pharmacy thus far, there is no way I am going to give money to this place and just trust that they are going to send the cream to me. Plus, $1 per gram is pretty expensive for something I have my doubts about. So, whatever.
- As a courtesy, I sent an e-mail via the patient portal with a snake oil update, and briefly described my negative experience with this pharmacy. Both the doctor and the MA told me they had actually switched pharmacies because the previous pharmacy was so sketchy and they had soooo many problems, so I thought they should know this one sucks, too. To my surprise, I got a response within a hour from a different MA than the usual one, who said that she spoke to my doctor, who said he could prescribe the same medication in pill form if I wanted. I'm still sort of contemplating this. What type of medication are we talking about here?
- Even though my PCP is now taking care of my DVT (supposedly), I still had the ultrasound results sent to my orthopedist, since he was the one who set off this whole thing to begin with. When he first came into the room, he started talking to me about my DVT, and how it might be a lifelong condition, etc., etc. He was saying all of this as he was reading the report from my ultrasound, which he then then left for me. It was only after the appointment was over when I read the report myself that I realized that he was looking at the report from October. Needless to say, this didn't exactly inspire confidence.
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