Addressing the other side of the hip

See how one hip joint is lower?

So for the past, I don’t know, 6 years or so I’ve been addressing the pain in my right hip.  PRP seemed to repair the torn labrum as well as stabilize the joint in dramatic fashion.  When physical therapists examine both hips, they find that my right one moves better than my left one.  Also, when I lam hanging out in the bottom of a squat I notice that my right hip joint is lower (I.E. moving better) than my left.

Now that Dry needling has finally released all those painful adhesions in my groin, I’m pretty much pain free on the right side. Sometimes I feel some pain in my gracillis (pain in the inguinal crease, gets worse when I try to raise my leg). But I’ve noticed when I do some work with the softball on my piriformis area it seems to go away.  So with regards to my right hip, I think I’ve got things about as good as it’s going to get (almost no pain while doing heavy lifts).

But one sensation that I’ve always been dealing with is pain/tightness in my lower back on the left side. It would usually flair up every once in a while, (I mean, almost five years ago I was thinking it was a kidney infection) but now that I’m back to deadlifting it’s always there. Either that or I just got used to it and it took a while to realize something was wrong.  I find my L5 is almost always out of alignment, and when I twist my torso one way it hurts that side, but when I twist the other way there is no pain.  So I’ve started thinking about my left hip.  I know the psoas on that side is always really tight, nowadays it’s tighter than the right side.  I also remember that the MRI came back with the diagnosis of bilateral FAI both cam and pincer type.  That means that the FAI was also going on in my left hip. And to finish it all off. I spent MONTHS of PT trying to get my left hip working correctly so that I would pass the Thomas test AND the Ober’s test. 

So all of this information points to the fact that perhaps my left hip should be addressed.  I’ve tried PT and that really didn’t do very much at all.  However, perhaps one or two prolo treatments will tighten everything back up? I’ve decided that while I’m down in Austin to see Dr. Fullerton about my shoulder I might as well find out my options for my hip. 

I don’t expect to get anything done when I’m down there for my first visit. For one, I might be going alone so I have to be able to drive back up to Dallas the day of the treatment, and I don’t think I could do that if he shoots up my hip.  Secondly, with my shoulder labrum healing I will probably be restricted from doing pretty much any upper body exercise. I’m hoping he will give sprinting the green light and I’ll join the local sprint club here in Dallas.  If I’m going to be able to sprint for exercise, I doubt getting prolo treatments for the hip will be allowed. …However since there isn’t a torn labrum being treated here perhaps I won’t be limited in what I can do with my lower body three days out from a treatment.

I have a lot of questions, but I am hoping that treating my left hip will help balance things out, and perhaps stop the lingering muscle tightness in my right hip. Only three more weeks until I see Dr. Fullerton!!!