Recently diagnosed with osteoarthritis in my hip

cjp44

Hi, I'm a newbie here. I have been struggling with pain in my right leg for a couple of years and coming up to 50. I have always been active and finding it very hard that the pain is limiting my life. After alot of pushing for, I had an MRI scan. The results aren't good. It is showing advanced osteoarthritis alongside greater trochanteric pain syndrome. I am going to the hip clinic next week to discuss next steps. I have an under lying amount of pain that flares up, sometimes into my knee. I am rubbish at knowing when too much pain is too much. I am currently on Naproxen, paracetamol and amitriptyline at night and still experience pain. I try and go for a 30 minute walk each day but it can be very painful and sometimes I end up limping. Driving can also hurt. I need to drive some days for work and at the moment running training sessions. Some days can be over 8 hours long after which I am in pain and tired. I feel bad that I am letting work down and a fraud because as I think i should be better at tolerating the pain. I am not great at being kind to myself and see it as giving in. Any advice on how to navigate work and look after myself would be great. I have a good boss who has told me to look after myself and a good OH service. I just don't know what to ask for to help me and how much pain is too much. I have got used to having a low level of pain always being there but starting to realise maybe this isn't acceptable and I need time away from work to look after myself.

MaryL44

Hello @cjp44  and welcome to the Community. We are a friendly and supportive group and I hope that will be your experience as well.

I'm sorry to hear about your pain and your worries. As you no doubt know, everyone's experience and tolerance of pain is different so I wouldn't be able to advise you on how much pain you should be able to bear. However, I think that your remark that the pain is limiting your life is quite telling - that, in my opinion, is not acceptable so I suggest you discuss this at your visit to the hip clinic next week. In my experience, we have to be quite persistent with the medical professionals and insist when we need help.

Our website is a mine of information so do look at it. There are quite a few items that will be of use to you:

https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/managing-symptoms/managing-your-pain/

https://www.versusarthritis.org/news/2023/june/how-can-i-prepare-for-a-doctor-s-appointment-if-i-have-arthritis/

Also, our community members will have vast experience and are very supportive so keep checking back here for their responses.

Please keep posting now you are here and let us know how you are getting on.

Best wishes

Mary

Trish9556

Hi @cjp44

I'm sorry you're in so much pain from your hip - I and many others on here have all suffered the pain and had total hip replacements including @Janlyn and @alwayssewing to name but a few who have written their experiences on here plus my own.

I don't think anyone, including GP's, ever understands how horrendous it is to try and live with pain 24/7, especially in such an important joint. There really is no respite unless you could be suspended in mid air with nothing supporting you.

You have the diagnosis already so that is a good starting point for you to go to your GP and tell them you need help, painkillers that work for you and a referral to orthopaedics. You may be sent through the MSK/Physio route which is basically a tick box exercise where you are offered some exercises and steroid injections. Never worked on me and I couldn't do much exercise. Once they have decided that these aren't working they will refer you to a hospital for surgery. If you live in England you can choose where you are treated via the NHS choices scheme. My lovely physio automatically chose the hospital with the shortest waiting list which just happened to be my local private hospital.

Please don't suffer in silence and please don't get fobbed off with your GP telling you that you have OA and that there's nothing they can do, you just get used to it.

If you have any questions please shout out on here, somebody will always help.

Trish

Janlyn

@cjp44 All @Trish9556 says makes perfect sense so I won't repeat it.

I do think you need help and advice from the msk clinic or a physio as to how much exercise and what type of exercise you would benefit from. It's really not possible for us to say but I do know from experience that if I exercised too much in one go I made my pain worse whereas if I exercised/walked for a few minutes then rested and repeated I seemed to build more strength and coped better. Regarding working/driving it's really something you need to discuss with your employer to make sure you aren't making your pain worse and hindering recovery, hopefully after advice from msk/physio. It's true that no one really seems to realise the pain we are in and that it is 24/7, I'm not always sure I did until I had my replacement and was amazed to realise the pain I had been in.

Take care and hope you get the help and support you need.