What is the matter with me anyway?

Well, I decided to take the plunge and begin a blog of my hip story. I have benefited so much from others blogs about their lives with hip dysplasia and decided that I wanted to offer my story to anyone who might come across it or benefit in any way. So here goes nothing...

I first noticed pain at the end of my 2nd pregnancy. This was back in 2004. The last 6 weeks or so of my pregnancy was horrific. I had stabbing pains in my groin that would escalate down my inner thigh. When I asked the doc about it, he figured the baby was sitting on a nerve and aggravating it. Nothing serious. I too chalked it up to pregnancy pains even though there were times when I would be mid stride and have this terrible pain. I would scream out in pain and literally fall to the floor. However, after giving birth, the pain went away and life continued as normal.

I went on to have 2 more children (now up to 4) and had similar pains at the end of pregnancy when the baby dropped. I now know it was due to that little turkey dropping to my pelvis and aggravating the heck out of my bad hips. The pain was always on my right, not the left, but my babies always favored my right side. Maybe part of the problem??? It makes me wonder if the pregnancies accelerated my hip depreciation/pain but I don't know. Others seemed to be diagnosed about the same age as me. And even if it did, so be it. I wouldn't change it for a second. Even if I end up having to have numerous surgeries and/or a THR my kids were totally worth it.

So after baby #4, the pain initially went away and I never thought about my painful hips again until about 10 months later when I started upping my workout to lose the baby weight. I had been running about 2 miles at a time, 3 days a week, as well as some classes at the gym. I would have occassionaly twinges of pain but not enough to make me think twice. Then about 10 months later, I increased my running to 4 miles and more often. I started having random stabbing pain in my hips which progressively occurred more often. It would just hit me out of nowhere mid stride. I tapered off a little but still had stabs of pain here and there. I remember playing baseball with my kids and chasing my 5 year old around the bases when all of a sudden it was like I was stabbed in the groin and my leg kind of gave out from under me. I hobbled around for the rest of the day. I talked about going to a doctor for months but wasn't sure where to go. Finally, the pain was so bad that I had to go to a doctor ASAP. So, I called the ortho my daughter saw when she broke her pinky. He didn't have an opening for 2 weeks and after the 1st week of waiting I was driving one day and just the motion of putting my right foot down on the gas pedal was killing me! I called the office and begged them for any sooner openings. They didn't have anything so I waited it out. On the day of the appointment, I felt pretty good. I didn't have much hip pain at all and even considered not going. I went in and after he asked me questions and did a physical exam he figured it was maybe a torn labrum. He wasn't overly concerned but wanted to have xrays done just to rule anything else out. When he came back, he wasn't so passive about the problem. He said, "It turns out you do have a structural problem here." He went on to talk about hip dysplasia and how he doesn't do the surgery to correct it but that the "it" guy was right here in Salt Lake and his name was Dr. Peters and they would call to set up an appointment for me. I just stared at him with a blank look on my face and said, "I can't have hip dysplasia. How could I possibly have this? I have played college softball and been active my whole life without any pain and you are telling me I was born with this problem?!"
He looked me straight in the eye and said, "I can see that you are doubtful of this diagnosis but I can tell you with 100% accuracy that this (hip dysplasia) is what you have." He went on talking about angles and explaining how my xrays aren't normal. He really got my attention and I couldn't believe I was actually born with bad hips. I made the appointment with Dr. Peters and waited the longest 6 weeks of my life for that appointment.