Anyone experienced changes in pain?

rozwalsh

Hello all, I hope you are managing ok. I was diagnosed in January with osteoarthritis in right hip. X ray showed "mild degeneration" but I have chronic pain and never got to see an NHS physio due to first lockdown. Up until around August I only had pain when I moved the hip joint, then it changed so that the pain is much more common when I sit still, and it's shooting pains and/or dull aches anywhere in my right leg. Not constantly but random and unpredictable (although generally worse when I sit for periods of time which I have to for my job). Is this common? Or should I be asking whether it's something other than the OA causing my pain? Thank you!

Lilymary

Hi, I get this too. Random shooting pains, anywhere on my leg, dull aches, the lot. I’m waiting for a new left hip. For me it all kicked off after tripping over and landing on my backside in Feb, and what had been a painless limp but reducing mobility ramped up to severe pain over the next few weeks. For 3 or 4 months the pain was just horrendous, and like you, even firing up when sitting still or lying in bed. But I could still go for short walks during all this.

Then it gradually changed to being less of the sharp agonising pains to a duller, more continuous pain and loud cracking noises, but even less joint rotation and only being able to walk very short distances, slowly, with a stick.

It’s got worse again over the last week or so. I thought maybe I’d been overdoing it, but it hasn’t settled after a quieter week, so I guess it’s moving into a different phase.

The last ortho doc I saw said I may have knocked of a bit of worn cartilage when I fell, which is moving around the joint wreaking havoc, but there’s no treatment for this other than pain relief until I get a new hip. This may explain why the pain keeps changing.

if your pain has changed dramatically to the point that it’s as bad as you say, it would be worth a review with your GP or referral to a musculoskeletal clinic to reassess the joint and review pain meds.

some private physios are now seeing patients (mine is). The NHS still hasn’t sorted some of their non-Covid services out yet. The physio May offer some manipulation to ease the pain and suggest a range of exercise exercises that would help you, but in the absence of any appointments, it would be worth you looking at the hip-specific exercises on this site, and also signing up for “Let’s move with Leon” to get you moving again and strengthen the muscles that support your hip, as well as mobilising your joints. Just do what you can manage without aggravating the joint - if it hurts, don’t do it. Build it up slowly. - not like me, who went it it full tilt and could hardly walk for 3 days! 🙄😅

They do also say you shouldn’t sit still for more than 30 mins, so try to get up and walk around for a few minutes from time to time. I’m awful at this, and can sit at the computer for hours and hours on end, then when the phone rings I can barely walk and don’t get to the phone in time before it rings off. At the beginning of January I was walking up steep fells, now I can’t make it between rooms to answer the bloomin’ phone!

i hope it helps to know you’re not alone in this, but arthritis really is pants.