Saturday, January 21, 2012

My Bursitis Ordeal

  I have had pain in my right hip for years, I figured from working as a certified nursing assistant for 22 years. I was always lifting a person and always on my feet. It started out just small but the pain got so bad I went in September 2010 to a orthopediac Dr.  He took some xrays, that combined with my sysptoms he diagnosed me with bursitis and tendonitis in my right hip. He gave me a cortisone shot said sometimes the medicine last a couple months sometimes a year, I was thinking wow if I could get relief for a year I would be overjoyed.
Well the shot helped at first, I wasn't feeling much pain, I was able to do a little more than normal. I had gotten to where I didnt go down the basement stairs much and hated to drive due to lifting my leg. The shot lasted me about 2 weeks and I was back to limping bad, having great pain, and sitting in my chair when I wasn't working.
Work was very hard for me as I had to walk alot, I was always up and down.
I went back to the same orthopediac Dr about March 2011 he said there wasn't much else he could do except give me another shot it wasn't a bone problem, But he gave me another shot, it hardley did anythign for my pain. When I called his office a month later to tell them the shot did no good he refered me to a pain Dr. I went to this Dr several times. On the first visit he ordered a body scan, xrays, a ct scan of  my hip he prescribed pain meds, and scheduled me for a pain block.
I had the first pain block it did some good for about a month I was able to drive and do move around more, but it didn't seem worth it to go through anesthesia for a month of pain relief. 
Since that only lasted a month he recommended I have a procedure where they burn the nerve. ( I do not remember the medical term for the procedure) He wanted the nerve burned in my lower back becase he believed my hip pain was comming from my back it was traveling. He is a Dr who am I to argue so we scheduled the procedure and I had it done. I felt bad after that surgery was over. This was September 2011 and I am still having lower back pain it is something that I can live with but.. I did not have pain before this procedure. and it did nothign for my hip pain. So I was back to square one again. When I went to the Dr and told him I was having back pain since his procedure he referred em to a orthopediac Dr. he ws able to look up the results of the tests I had and his opinion I had severe Bursitis and tendonitis of my right hip, which is exactly what the first orthopediac Dr said. He reocmmended that i do physical therapy that alot of times that relieves the pain.

Bursitis is inflammation of a bursa. A bursa (the plural form is bursae) is a tiny fluid-filled sac that functions as a gliding surface to reduce friction between tissues of the body. There are 160 bursae in the body. The major bursae are located adjacent to the tendons near the large joints, such as the shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees.
A bursa can become inflamed from injury, infection (rare in the shoulder), or due to an underlying rheumatic condition. Examples of bursitis include injury as subtle as lifting a bag of groceries into the car to inflame the shoulder bursa (shoulder bursitis), infection of the bursa in front of the knee from a knee scraping on asphalt (septic prepatellar bursitis), and inflammation of the elbow bursa from gout crystals (gouty olecranon bursitis).
The symptoms of bursitis are directly related to the degree of inflammation present in the bursa. The inflamed bursa can cause localized pain and tenderness. If the bursa is so inflamed that swelling occurs, it can cause local swelling and stiffness, sometimes associated with local redness and warmth. The inflammation can make it painful to support body pressure. For example, hip bursitis can make it difficult to lay on the affected side of the hip. Bursitis in the knee, for another example, can make it painful to lay with the knees touching each other.
Bursitis is typically identified by localized pain or swelling, tenderness, and pain with motion of the tissues in the affected area. X-ray testing can sometime detect calcifications in the bursa when bursitis has been chronic or recurrent.
More to come!

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