Treating Your Femoroacetabular Impingement: What You Need To Know

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Hip pain can be incredibly frustrating. It can keep you from being able to sit comfortably, walk, go about your daily activities, or engage in any physical exercise. When you go to an orthopedist and find out that you have a femeroacetabular impingement, you may be more confused than ever. What this difficult to pronounce term means is that you have a bony overgrowth (bone spurs) in your hip socket or on the top of your femur (the head of your thigh bone or femoral head). Before you think that this is a condition that you are just going to have to put up with, get to know some of the available treatments for your femeroacetabular impingement. 

Physical Therapy

Sometimes, femeroacetabular impingement can be treated and managed without the use of surgery. One of the best ways to accomplish this is through the use of physical therapy. 

In order to reduce the pain and friction in the hip joint that occurs because of those bony projections or spurs, a person needs to strengthen and lengthen the muscles surrounding and supporting that hip joint. This will not stop the bone spurs from existing or from growing. However, it will help to reduce that painful rubbing.

Physical therapy will help you to develop a program for strength training that does not cause you additional pain. Additional flexibility conditioning will be a part of the physical therapy process. Your physical therapist may even recommend a regular yoga practice to help you maintain muscle flexibility and pliability. 

Arthroscopic Surgery or Other Surgical Options

Sometimes, the relief that physical therapy provides is simply not enough, even with the addition of steroid injections directly into the hip joint as a part of the treatment program. In these cases, surgery may be in order. 

Arthroscopic surgery is the least invasive surgical option for femeroacetabular impingement. Other options such as open surgery and an osteotomy require much larger incisions.

The incisions in arthroscopic surgeries are extremely small and the doctor is able to visualize the interior of the hip using the arthroscope that is guided through the incision. Precision tools are then used to help reshape the hip joint. However, the larger the bone spurs, the more likely it is that a surgical procedure that involves an open incision will be needed.  

Now that you have a general idea of the treatments available for your femeroacetabular impingement, you will be prepared for what is to come. There is relief to be had from your hip pain due to bone spurs. So, talk to your doctor as soon as possible to get your treatments started. For more information, contact a professional like Framingham Orthopedic Associates.


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