The hip labral tear conundrum

The hip labral tear and treatment seem to be shrouded in secrecy and myth. Knee and shoulder injuries and the surgeries to repair them seem pretty straight forward. There's a well established track record of options and a ton of good success stories.

But hip labral tears seem different. Many times this injury is accompanied with a bone spur which is thought to be the reason there's a tear to begin with. So the basic idea with the surgery is to shave down the bone and repair the labrum.

It sounds basic enough but the problem with the hip is the socket is pretty hard to get to. It's surrounded by nerves, muscles and needs to be dislocated or put in traction just to get to the torn area. There are two main surgical options: open surgery and arthroscopic.

There are several frustrating things about this surgery.

First off, while the arthroscopic one seems to be desirable in terms of shorter recovery time and being less invasive, it's considered experimental and therefore not covered on most insurance plans.

Secondly this surgery is relatively new and thus there are few surgeons out there who have mastered the technique. I live in Austin, TX and would need to travel to Nashville, Vail or San Francisco to get this procedure done.

Neither one of those problems is a deal breaker but what really concerns me is the fact that I'm reading stories from many people who have gotten this surgery and wished they hadn't. There are stories after stories of people saying that they're still limping six months later. Some talk about needing a second or even third surgery. And others need surgery on the other hip after they get the first one "fixed".

I realize that going on the internet for information about anything might not be the smartest of ideas, but there are whole discussion forums on this very surgery and the prognosis doesn't look good to me

So surgery is certainly not the first choice. And at the moment my symptoms are intermittent enough that I don't have an immediate need to get anything done.

But the other thought is what if I wait? There are even more stories of wearing cartilage down leads to arthritis leads to total hip replacement. While it might be a type of honor to have something in common with Bo Jackson, I'd prefer not to have that.

And while I know that my years of jiu jitsu and working out have put a strain on my body, it seems strange to think that bone spur which has most likely been there the whole time, is now suddenly a problem.

I'm not satisfied with the answers out there, so I started this blog to find better solutions and to keep track of my progress on other types of treatments.