To make a long story short, I hurt my hip flexor muscle over 2 months ago playing soccer. I made it worse by playing soccer twice more after that. But, since then, I haven't done anything physical. I finally got a recommendation from a Doctor to see a PT.

I have now been to the PT three times (starting 3 weeks ago) and have had acupuncture treatment, ultrasound treatment, heat/ice treatment, some extreme pain/pressure treatment, and a multitude of exercises. Nothing has seemed to make a difference.

I read this thread
https://texags.com/forums/48/topics/2950441
and wished I had an Airrosti clinic nearby but I do not. I have never had this issue in my life and had played soccer most of my life and had run a few marathons.

What else can I do? Wait it out for who-knows-how-long and keep these exercises going to hopefully make it better? I don't want to wait that much longer since I physically cannot run. Are there other things that can be done? Like a steroid-type injection perhaps? Or any other magic drug to make it at least somewhat better?

Are you certain the problem is the hip flexor?

I spent the better part of a year trying to fix what I thought was a strained hip flexor. Tried stretching, heat, cold, pt, rest, massage, everything. After 12 months I went to the ortho and they did an MRI. Turns out I had a torn acetabular labrum. No amount of stretching is fixing that. I ended up having surgery.

tldr: if you've been working months without finding anything that makes a difference, consider whether it might be something other than hip flexor.

I strained my one of my hip flexors a couple years ago. I took a solid 2 months off from anything that uses them other than walking. Then I slowly started doing very light stretching and a few situps at a time, then very light band work, then light running. Probably about 5-6 months before I felt comfortable running again. Of course, just my luck, I ended up injuring my foot shortly thereafter and had to stop running for another 6 months.

Getting old sucks.

AggieEE2002 said:

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Are you certain the problem is the hip flexor?

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I am as sure as what my doctor and PT have told me. But, that's as far as it goes. I don't have a good insurance plan (it's a very high deductible one) so I am trying to reduce the amount of doctors that I see. But, I bet an MRI would definitely tell me what was going no. My PT seems absolutely convinced it is a hip flexor, especially since he did acupuncture on it (which hurt like hell). He even did two 'punctures - one in the Psoas and one in the Iliacus. Well, I may consider an MRI if things don't get better... It will have to wait until my deductible starts over in January...

bigtruckguy3500 said:

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Getting old sucks.

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It sure does. I'm sorry to hear about the foot after the long long recovery. Well, I guess hip flexors just take a long, frustrating time to heal...

How do you feel about the results and what was your recovery like? I have the same thing in my right hip but much to my surprise the ortho and other docs seem to think the surgical route might not be my best bet. Bout sick of living in pain, personally.

Smells like a hernia up in here. But seriously what bothers it?

I would absolutely do the surgery again.

Mine was back in February of this year - they reattached the labrum with anchors arthroscopically. Two weeks on crutches, then PT for about 3 months or so. I was finally able to ride MTB again in September with no pain. I had not been riding for about 1.5 years prior to the surgery due to pain. Its still a little stiff in the morning and I am still working to get the range of motion to match my other leg. I do cardio and weights about 5 days a week without pain.

Mine was just a dull pain at first but eventually I started having occasional sharp pains when I would pivot my leg, which both orthos assumed was the torn part of the labrum getting pinched between the ball and socket. When that happened I had to just stand in place for 15-30 seconds until the pain went away. Thats what finally made me decide to do the surgery.

My surgeon was Scheinberg in Dallas. Really liked him. I was surprised to learn there are far fewer orthos that do scopes on the hip than shoulder, knee, etc.
https://txorthopaedic.com/team-physician/robert-r-scheinberg-m-d/

AggieEE2002 said:

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Are you certain the problem is the hip flexor?

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Hi guys, just getting back to this thread. Well, after PT was doing nothing, I wanted to get a steroid shot to speed this process up so I consulted with the ortho doc. Right away, the ortho guy was sure that my injury was not a hip flexor and presumed it was an adductor tear.

So, after an MRI and an x-ray, it turns out they were both wrong and I have a bilateral cam-type femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) due to some bone spurring where my injury is. AND, I have a labral tear in my other hip, but I don't feel pain for it so we're leaving that one alone.

Step one is to get a steroid shot (which required the use of an x-ray camera) right into that joint and wait 2 weeks to see how it goes. If it works, then that's it. If not, step two is go see the one specialist in the state who can potentially do surgery to grind down my bone spurs... It's been 1 week since my injection and it's maybe halfway better. I can only hope it gets fully better......

I started that thread last year. I took a couple months off from running and instead did a weight routine along with lots of stretching. It got better. Took a while though. I think squats really helped.

Did any of your prior docs/PTs do a good hip exam on you? Kind of like these, specifically like A.



And just a word of caution, fixing something that's seen on imaging doesn't always correlate to fixing the source of the problem.

Yes that test with shown in A with overpressure is often used to look for impingement or labral invovlement. But it must fit with the bigger diagnostic picture. Differential diagnosis isn't easy at all.

Agreed. The retrospectoscope makes things easy. But I was just more curious as to whether or not FADIR was positive given the positive image findings.

From what I remember in the literature FADIR is not a very good test at all for teasing out FAI or labral involvement.

I some old research books on special tests that I will go through to see the actual numbers on it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28669665

Small study, and don't have access to the pull paper, but not a great test it would seem. Still though, would be surprised if this test wasn't done.