I do not have bone-on-bone but the pain is now very bad all through the day, and for the past 2 nights I have not been able to lie in bed and sleep. I have no idea wnen I might have my op but I honestly can't cope with the level of pain when lying down. I have 2 morphine/butane patches on (5mg & 10mg), and before bed I take 400mg Iboprufen, 2 paracetamol & 30mg Amitriptyline but the sharp pain intensity in my buttock & thigh never goes down. It's been like this for the past two nights and I just don't know what on earth to do. If I take Zopiclone (sleeping med) I can eventually drift off but doctors don't like to give you much of this because of addiction. - grateful for any advice. Thanks
I posted recently how I coped but due to being considered too young for replacement hip surgery 25years ago and no being able to get a good night's sleep I went to a chiropractor for help. That night and onwards I was able to have pain free nights and he helped ne build muscle strength to better support my hip for several years until I was allowed to have a hip replacement.
Please just make sure your chiropractor is not a McTimoney trained one as they have a reduced range of abilities.
Hi Sarah, sorry to hear you are In So much pain. Especially when you are trying to sleep. Is the pain in both your hips or just one? I have it in both but my right side is considerably worse and I have had to train myself not to sleep on that side as it is agony if I try it or if I wake up there!
If it is in one, You have probably already thought of this or tried it, but I have found sleeping with a fairly sturdy pillow between my knees and thighs makes a huge difference. I sleep on my 'good side' and wedge the pillow, long ways, between my legs. It takes the weight out of the top leg which eases the pain in my hip and thigh. I had to try quite a few pillows but got there in the end and it also makes it harder to roll in the night - trying to negotiate the pillow to turn over normally wakes me up and then I can stop myself!
If it is in both, I found sleeping on my back with the pillow under my thighs helped too. I do this when I'm reading in bed.
This may also sound silly, but I have had to try everything, but if you have ever done yoga, the breathing techniques from that as you try to drift off do help. It makes you feel less stressed and therefore you relax everything more. You can pick up some mantras online as well to repeat in your head to try and relax you and I have oddly found this helps.
I literally feel your pain - I love my bed and I love sleeping but having hip problems is a nightmare for getting comfy!
Other than that, naproxen is a good slow release anti inflammatory which helps but you have to be careful with what you can take with it. I have had cortisone injections too which help, but I have had mixed success in honesty. If they work however, it can give some relief, especially for sleeping.
I would try and see an Osteopath. Thats what kept me sane when I was waiting for my op. Also speak to your GP to see if there maybe a different painkiller that is more effective for you as you seem to be on a mixture. Also speak with your surgeons secretary re getting you in quickly. X
I am in a similar situation although not as severe as yourself. I am not bone on bone since the x rays of Sept. 2015 and my general conditon seems stable or at least not terribly deteriorated since those were taken just bad enough to limit my activites, energy levels with a daily persistent pain level that erodes quality of life. I'm in the states, without insurance so the surgery is not something I can have done until I get insurance which won't be until near the end of the year if at all. In the meantime for the last two years I have made due with both exercize and physical medicine. I routinely do a 1//2 hour to a 1 hour set of stretching/strengthening exercizes that are the reccomended ones for our condition: bridges, clam shells, reverse clamshells, resistance bands for abducctor/adducctor/hamstrings/quadracepts and flexors. 100 abdominal crunches 2 X day and swim 3 times a week with a set of circuits on the machines at the health club and some weights as well.
I can tell you before I got back to the routine of regular exercize, which I had neglected for about 6 monthd due to work load, I was a crippled mess. Once I began doing my exercizes again, while it didn't cure the arthritis it very much improved the pain. Not fully and not permanantly but it does alleviate the symptoms at least temporaraly. I cant' say if you would be able to start incorporating more movement and strengthening into your daily activities, but if you re able to do any of the reccomended exercizes and just begin to do so you might find some relief which will help strengthen your resolve and increase your ability to do more. My thinking is, if I can manage to have the surgery done I want to be as strong as possible with the maximum tone I can reach for the muscles and soft tissues that are going to be impacted by the surgery in the effort of the best and fullest recovery. When I am disciplined in my approach I get relief, when I am undisciplined things get worse.
The most effective physical treatment I have found is deep tissue massage. A good therapist that can work on the glutes, legs and hopefull the illia soaz muscles along with some range of motion and active resistance stretching has been most beneficial for me. I sometimes leave the sessions pain free and moving almost as if nothing is wrong with me. It doesn't last unfortunately but it certainy helps and the relief is something I am deeply grateful for. I am fortunate in that there is a massage school in my neighborhood that runs a clinic 3 days a week and I get the student massage rate at half price, $25 for an hour. The students have been generally very good, of the 5 different ones who have worked on me 3 were professional level [nearly graduated] and 2 were less effective. I have relied on deep tissue massage for 30 years of injuries and it has always been my primary form of health care so if you have any access to a good therapist it might really be a course of action you should consider.
I have also recieved treatment from chiropractic and have been seeing one 2 X week for about the last 6 weeks. I found the treatment beneficial although not as effective as good deep tissue. Ideally I would incorporate both as expenses would allow. Also did a month of physio therapy as a self reffered, self pay client but decided I could do the exercize on my own at home with the same benefit minus the cost. My dissapointment there might have been the clinic itself- a different physio therapist might have helped more. Doing the exercizes is what counts for relief.
Sleeping can be challenging. For the last several months I'd been sleeping on my side as I normally do and keeping a pillow on each side to support the upper leg. I found that doing so always meant waking up several times a night to need to roll over because I was awakened by pain from being stationary on whichever side I had been lying on. Rolling over was pretty painful, enough to wake me completely for a minute ot two and I just wasn't getting a full nights rest. Recently I have taken to posting a pillow folded in half for support under each knee and sleeping on my back. I have found this to be a better position, it keeps me off my hips and off my sides which seem to freeze up if I lay on them for too long. With the two pillows under my knees and sleeping on my back I don't seem to roll over or have the need to and I am relieved from the pain and finally getting a decent nights sleep again.
I'd really reccomend trying the deep tissue massage. It has helped me so much and I hope it can help you as well.
Gosh what a lovely long reply Jimbone, thank you for your kindness in bothering to write such a lengthy and very interesting reply. I think tonight I may well try the pillows under the knees whilst lying on my back. It's a bit expensive for me at the moment to go along to private chiropractors but when I am able to I will certainly book an appointment. Deep tissue massage sounds great - again thank you for writing all that.
Many thanks Vix for such a helpful reply, I only have one bad hip but agony it is, boy oh boy. I've had children but never had pain like this. Tonight I'm trying to sleep on my back with pillows under both knees. I am in total agony if I go to roll over so I will try this first. x
Yes I do take quite a lot of painkillers but the irony is I have bad pain 24/7. In fact it was so bad this afternoon I phoned the surgeon's secretary and asked her how long I might have to wait. To cut a long story very short she told me I had 2 options. One was to ask my doctor to write to my surgeon to ask him to expediate my op (due to the intense pain level) or two, to go along to A+E.
So I have written a letter to my GP to ask her if she will do this. Another doctor in the practice phoned me to say he would prescribe me more Zopiclone as my night pain is so bad. It was kind of him to do this as although I don't like taking sleeping stuff it does mean I can grab a few hours sleep. I also have booked an appointment to see my GP in a week's time.
My pain this evening is horrid so here's hoping I can get an earlier op than at first thought.
Hi Renee, yes I have spoken to my surgeon's secretary - see my reply to auntiebeanie - and as regards morphine patches I already have two on my arms! ( 15mcg in total). This is just how awful my pain level is. So here's hoping I can get a quicker op....I just don't know... xx
I know exactly what you mean Sarah, if I roll onto my bad hip accidently in the night I am a complete write off the following day! It's so hard as I always used to sleep on that side so I was completely retraining my body not to do what it's always done! If you can bolster yourself in with pillows, it should make you more comfortable and also makes it so much harder to move! At least then it might alert you before you roll onto the bad side! Good luck! Let us know if the pillow trick works! ☺️
Okay darling - so your GP will write a letter to ortho surgeon to expediate the hip replacement surgery due to level of pain you are in ??? Make sure she does that, okay ...and ask for a copy of the letter so you know what she wrote - then call the surgeon's secretary again and again and again -
unfortunately you need to be on it --
going to Emergency Room or Urgent Care will also help -
I so hope and ray that you get the surgery date soon and in the meantime can sleep uninterrupted -
Hi Sarah, I got my right hip replaced in March 2015 and have never been able to lie on that side since. I have been the waiting list for 5 months and the pain is horrendous, for the past year I have been sitting up in bed as I can't lie on either side and can't lie on my back as you can imagine sitting up in bed sleeping is not great actually it's a nightmare I average 3-4 hours sleep a night. I am on 120mg morphine (longtec) 60-80mg morphine (shortec) 8x 500mg paracetamol and 900mg gabapentin a day which I am not happy about and still my pain is not controlled I just wish my operation date would come in so that I can get off all the meds. My surgeon said that the ball of the hip is not in the joint it is sitting somewhere on the outside of my thighs don't then added the pain must be awful but still waiting on operation. Have you tried lying with a pillow in between your legs as that helped me at the start. Hope you find a solution.
That is absolutely terrible for you, you have been very brave to have coped with it all. I'm B. sure I would not have managed to! Surely you should have been seen as an emergency.
Hi Richard, it is now becoming a struggle as I'm not really getting out of the house, I'm only 54 and waited 7 years for my right hip to be done because they kept saying I was too young. The right hip has been great no problems at all since it was replaced but my surgeon told me that it was the worst hip replacement he had done in his 35 years as a surgeon and he wanted me to lose more weight before I got the other hip done which I Done and he said he would do it straight away once I had lost the weight, so in March I had lost what he asked and he put me on the list went for my pre assessment in April and it is 5 months today that I went on the list and still waiting for my date for my operation. I have always been really upbeat and positive but since they went by the 12 week timescale and then the 18 week timescale I'm am beginning to get really down. I have been walking with crutches for 9 and a half years I'm not going to know how to walk without them it has been that long ( ha ha ) but fingers crossed hopefully hear something within the next couple of weeks. Hope all is well with you.
Hi Richard I think he ran into a few problems he said it had been left too long not really sure what happened, I had to have a general and apparently they had to intubate really fast as I was losing a lot of blood and my blood pressure dropped really low the anaetheist broke one of my top teeth in half which he came up to see me after the operation and apologised for he just said they had ran in to a few complications, but my surgeon came up and was not happy he said to me that is the worst hip replacement I have down in my 35 years as a surgeon and that he was exhausted because it took 4 and a half hours but he didn't really explain what the problem was except for saying that he wanted me to lose more weight for left hip as that was a lot worse than then right and he wasn't putting me or him through that again as he has never lost anyone on an operating table yet and he was not about to start now. My new hip is great as far as I'm concerned only thing is I can't lie on it but he says it's not right but it was the best he could get it. Hopefully this operation will have no problems, although I wished he had never told me what happened as now I'm a bit scared. Thanks for your wishes Richard means a lot.
Just finished watching a series of You Tube video by Dr. Scott Aseth MD. He discusses many of the concerns often discussed here: swelling, pain medications, approach differences, difficulty sleeping, recovery times. I mention it here because of the sleeping issue in this discussion- his solutions regarding sleep are mostly medications but I found the series overall to be very informative, rational, and realistic. Hope someone finds someting uselfull there.