I'm now in the 3rd week of recovery. Most of the recovery plans indicated that it should be safe and desirable to start using a stationary bike after about 14 days. I tried a short session last Friday (day 15) and managed to do 10 minutes without any pain.
Then on Saturday I thought I'd do it again, but extending to 30 minutes. I managed this, without pain and it felt great afterwards. However, by Sunday morning I had the same pain in my buttocks as before the repair. This got gradually worse. At my physio session on Monday (day 18) I mentioned this to the therapist and she said I've probably just caused some inflammation in the wound.
I must say that I can move my leg in most ways, without pain. The only hassle is the pain from the labrum. I haven't tried cycling again yet. Common sense says I've got to rest for a few days until the pain subsides again.
So I had my hip arthroscopy done on Thursday. The surgery took about 2 hours with about an hour in recovery afterwards. It's now been 3 days since the operation and I'm relatively pain free. It was tricky to get around on crutches at first - the hardest part is getting up the stairs. And my hands hurt!
The fall
I slipped and fell during a run last year and twisted my right leg sharply in the process. Trying to get up, it felt like I broke my leg. But I didn't because I could stand and walk. We were miles into the forest, so there was no way of easily getting to civilization, so I carried on. The pain got much less intense after about 10 minutes and I thought it was only a superficial injury. We finished the run and sat down for lunch at a pub. An hour later I got up and felt like I was going to die. My leg was completely lame and I could hardly walk to the train. I made it home and took a long hot bath that eased the pain a bit. The next day it was much better. So started my next 7 months of almost constant pain. I had physiotherapy, sports massages, ostheotherapy, MRI scans, X-rays and saw so many different doctors. The pain was constantly there. But I had no idea what caused it. I managed to sort of keep up my running and in this time completed 5 half marathons, and a bunch of 10kms. But it progressively became worse. I also gained about 4kg over this time, simply because I couldn't run as much as I used to. This is what happened.
The diagnosis
After the MRI scan was done, the radiographer determined that I have a possible labral tear. This is a tear in the tissue around the hip joint that keeps the whole structure together.
It made sense. I never felt as if the joint was damaged - I could still run significant distances. But the dull pain in my buttock was always there and I couldn't pinpoint it. It didn't change if I stopped running for a few weeks, I felt it when I sat down and walked.
Exercise
I stopped running in the first week of January after I saw my CT scan images. It gave me such a fright that I felt compelled to end my running there and then. To me it looked like my femur is full of pits and is falling apart.
It took another two weeks to see the doctor who told me that it looks all right. Lesson learnt - don't jump to conclusions. Up until the end of 2016 I was running anything from 30 to 60km a week, burning in excise of 5000kCal. I realised that if I just stop dead I will gain weight at a frightening rate if I don't change anything.
Fasting
So in preparation for surgery, I started an intermittent fasting routine, while trying to stay active with walking. I tried to do > 12,000 steps a day four times a week. This worked really well and from early January to surgery day I managed to lose almost 7kg. This is me on intermittent fasting without running:
The procedure
I don't have much information about what the surgeon actually did unfortunately. I was supposed to have a labral repair in combination with the ABICUS procedure. This last procedure repairs any cartilage problems with stem cells. I didn't undergo that.
