FAI (Femoro-acetabular Impingement) & Karate

My personal experience with FAI and what you should know about this condition

Archive for March, 2008

8 weeks on hip #2!

According to the Dr, I was to be putting no more than 20 lbs of weight on my right leg through the 8-week mark.  That was today.  My appointment with him is not until Thursday.  So I am still keeping a crutch stuck to my right side until I get the official nod from him.  Hopefully he will confirm that all is well and I can move ahead with my recovery at a quick pace.   It has been 3 1/2 months since my left hip surgery.  Although I still feel some minor discomfort in that hip with sharp turns (don’t forget that the left leg is bearing almost all my weight most of the time), it seems like it is getting very close to full recovery and will be there just as soon as my right side can do some serious catching up.

3 months / 6 weeks

Yesterday marked 3 months since I had surgery on my left hip and 6 weeks for my right.  My left leg/hip is just about as strong as it has ever been now.  I am just starting to add some serious resistance on my right side.  From my next session at physical therapy, I am told that I can finally pedal with both feet.  My range-of-motion is still somewhat limited on my left side.  But it is better now than it has been for the past year or so and I haven’t been pushing it the way I used to.  So I would expect to improve on that more once I am more active overall and standing around on just my left leg less.

5 weeks on right hip

Can I run yet? Jump? OK. How about walk without crutches?  Not yet?  I feel like I am ready, and have been, to get rid of these crutches and get into a serious recovery schedule.  But the doctor says it takes 8 weeks for the bone to heal so I am waiting for a few more weeks.  At least I am doing more strengthening work at physical therapy.  The stretching is actually much more strenuous than the strengthening portion of the PT.  I feel like my left side is just not able to get flexible while I continue to put most of my weight on it all day.  I made a point of not doing much walking this weekend and I think that may have helped.

strengthening the right hip

Yesterday marked 4 weeks since the surgery on my right hip.  So after the usual stretching at the physical therapist’s, she started me on some light strengthening exercises for that size (in addition to all the strenuous exercises I have been doing on my left).  It felt so good to be putting some weight on the right side (slowly, with control).  Even “baby steps” are better than no steps… It is still frustrating but at least I am seeing more of the light at the end of the tunnel. I will make up for lost time later.  The left side continues to get stronger but range of motion is definitely suffering, to a great extent because I am constantly balancing on that side to minimize the weight on my right.