The first week after surgery, although most painful, also had the most noticeable day-to-day improvement. After that, there has been steady improvement, but barely discernible from a day-to-day standpoint. Here's what Shira has had me doing:
Week 1: Spinning on bike, no resistance, Lay prone 2 hour/s day, Laying heel pulls, Limit sitting at <=90 degrees leg to body angle, Two crutches, Leg in Constant Passive Motion (CPM) for 6 hours/day
Week 2 Allowed to swim with pull buoy, Iso abs flexes, Glut flexs, Quad flexes
Week 3 Same as 2
Week 4 Allowed to water walk, Down to one crutch, Terminal knee extension, Hip extension - unilateral support, Terminal knee extension (standing), Resisted hip abduction (on stomach), Standing abduction, Bent knee fall-outs, Hip int/ext rotators, can do curls and pull-ups but make sure not to kip.
Week 5 No more crutches, One-leg balance, Side-lying hip abduction, Terminal knee extension (standing), Hip extension - unilateral support, Supine terminal knee extension, Strengthening wall slides, Resisted hip abductor, Bridging, clam shells and reverse clam shells
I made it to the pool the day before my appointment to test out my hip while "lightly kicking" and it didn't feel great. I did one lap kicking and the rest with the pull buoy. I guess we'll work up to regular swimming.
Since I have loose and overly flexible joints, her approach has been to limit stretching exercises and focus on strength.She also wants to postpone any hip flexor work because she feels it will likely result in tendinitis.
Yesterday, however, I visited Dr. Parker. He was unable to see me at my initial post-surgical meeting and after meeting him for the 5-week meeting, I wish he had been there.
We reviewed the scope pics from my surgery and I was able to gain a much better understanding of what the images actually showed. It turns out, I did not have two labral tears, which is good. There was damage to it due to the pinching between my hip and femur which he fixed. It was also interesting to see the scope pics taken after his work was done. He ground my bones down to the point where you can see marrow. Apparently, it takes about 3 months for the hard exterior of the bone to re-grow and that is the majority of the reason for running restrictions (avoiding a stress fracture). He did some strength and flexibility tests and said that I am ahead of schedule. Dr. Parker said I can resume any activities I want to the extent my hip will allow and probably only need another month or so of PT. Finally, he said I could probably try running again after three months instead of four, so that's great news as well.
Things are good.
