Hip labral (labrum) tear success or experience

I sustained a hip labral tear a few months ago (sqauting with a barbell, ignoring injury and continuing activities made it worse), and climbing became painful. Can't push leg out and put pressure. Recommended surgery (as it's the only way for a labral tear to heal). BUT I've been hammering away at PT, strenthening exercises, and i've returned to hiking (no pain) and I am doing better. Much better. Though still can't push leg out to side. I have 6 weeks to continue PT before my scheduled surgery. Of course i don't have to do surgery and could put it off longer to keep trying PT. But I struggle how long to keep trying (been doing PT for 8 weeks now). Recovery from the surgery will be a b**tch. Can't return to normal acitivities for 3 months. But ultimately there is no harm to the surgery. They won't be altering anything. Has anyone else out there had the same injury? Did you strictly do PT and have success or ultimately no success? If you did surgery were you able to get back into climbing? Pain free, or less pain? And yes, I recognize everyone's body, injury and situation is different. But I'd love to know other experiences. 

Probably not really relevant to you. I had a labral tear and because I also had significant arthritis, my Drs said that labrum repair was not likely to  last and would likely tear again. I believe that my symptoms were from the torn labrum and not the arthritis . I ended up with a total hip replacement. I was told that PT alone would not have been very helpful.

My best friend had this, but it was not from a traumatic event like yours, just a gradually developing intolerable pain. It was/is quite a tear, according to her docs. She has made a full functional recovery with private Pilates on the reformer and Cadillac machines. Apparently the labrum doesn’t have nerves ? And one can just kind of live with tears for many years quite happily, and it’s the surrounding tissues and structures that produce pain reactions ? I was fascinated to learn that. Anyway, she climb full effort strength now with no pain,  since about 3 months into her Pilates trainings. She had immediate improvement, and I think still does it every few weeks. 

I had surgery for a labral tear / FAI impingement in april 2018 and I think I was back in the gym 6-7 months later, but I honestly should have waited longer. The recovery was reeeeally long for me. Now I usually say that it took me 2 years before I felt "back to normal", and I still have issues with that hip occasionally. I do wonder what would have happened if I had kept trying PT for longer before opting for surgery! It didn't feel like it was working, at the time. But overall I'm also happy with where I am now compared to where I was before the procedure. 

Shot in the dark based on all of your locations, but can anyone recommend a hip doctor in the boulder/fort Collins area of Colorado? Did some p.t. with no luck, although stretching does help I think there's something underlying. 

My symptoms seem to come around with periods of sitting. It's a dull ache and feeling of tightness deep in the hip/groin area. It's still plenty strong, can hike and run and climb with no increased pain generally. In a seated position if rotate externally and plant my foot I can often get a thunderous jolting pop out of it. Likely over sharing but if that sounds like any of your experiences I'd be interested to hear about it. 

Steven Gonzalez wrote:

Shot in the dark based on all of your locations, but can anyone recommend a hip doctor in the boulder/fort Collins area of Colorado? Did some p.t. with no luck, although stretching does help I think there's something underlying. 

My symptoms seem to come around with periods of sitting. It's a dull ache and feeling of tightness deep in the hip/groin area. It's still plenty strong, can hike and run and climb with no increased pain generally. In a seated position if rotate externally and plant my foot I can often get a thunderous jolting pop out of it. Likely over sharing but if that sounds like any of your experiences I'd be interested to hear about it. 

Sitting in a car for prolonged periods was the most painful part of my hip/labrum, and my pain was deep in the hip/groin too.

I have slightly deformed femur/pelvic bones on my right hip from birth. I learned this recently(last year) after sustaining a bad labral tear during the course of a totally normal climbing session. As a result of that, I found out I have multiple labral tears, dating back years from my janky hip geometry. I was essentially told I would likely need a total hip replacement by the time I'm 45. The doctor advised me to do PT, make my hip stronger to delay that eventuality, but to keep climbing and doing what I'm doing because it's going to continue to degrade over time. It feels 97% better now about a year later. I WOULD recommend doing PT, eating a lot of high quality protein, and delaying the surgery until your hip basically falls apart.

Sounds just like mine CSP. After about 1.5hrs in the car it tends to set in. 

Eric, were there any p.t. stretches/exercises that stick out as extra effective? At 97% is it pain or functionality that makes up the remaining 3%? 

Hey, I get some pinching with certain movements but no other symptoms or loss of range of motion. Oddly enough, my ROM is slightly better than my other hip.

I don’t think any particular exercise is best. I think there’s something like 20ish muscles that support the hip, doing exercises which hit as many as you can to develop strength and mobility through all sorts of ranges would be best for climbing.

Of course, this is all goal dependent. You can cruise moderates all day with barely any hip mobility at all.

Eric Marx wrote:

I don’t think any particular exercise is best. I think there’s something like 20ish muscles that support the hip, doing exercises which hit as many as you can to develop strength and mobility through all sorts of ranges would be best for climbing.

This.

Keep those Glutes strong. Forget stretching, getting them tight is key. Except for the piriformis, give that lil bugger a stretch here and there or it might nag the sciatic nerve. 

GL

Update - my labrum tear healed. Laid off all activities that hurt the hip. And several months later it's officially healed. Or rather I've finally become active again and haven't had any pain. And they said it would never heal without surgery. Don't believe everything "they" say. 

Great news. Were you doing physical therapy that entire time or did you stop all activity? Can you push your leg out without any pain now? 

I tore my labrum many years ago and it is very manageable to work around and it will heal. I only have about 90-95% mobility in that hip compared to the other and there is occasional pain with certain movements and it flares up from super long hiking trips but yeah it’s very manageable with PT / yoga etc. I would not recommend surgery unless you have spent at least a year working through resting / PT / stretching etc

Nate Sievert wrote:

Great news. Were you doing physical therapy that entire time or did you stop all activity? Can you push your leg out without any pain now? 

Welllll… I ended up in the hospital w a blood clot (unrelated to the hip issues), and basically thru a series of events had to be  inactive - completely - for a few months. There by allowing the hip to heal entirely. And according to the MRI report it was a “full tear”. And the two opinions I got from surgeons said it would not heal without surgery. Gotta say though - I’m a super active person and having to intentionally not do anything for months would have been impossible for me (had it not been for the blood clot). So being forced to lay low was a blessing in disguise. 

It seems unlikely it would be completely healed, as opposed to just uninflamed and unsymptomatic. You should get another MRI and see.

Eric Marx wrote:

It seems unlikely it would be completely healed, as opposed to just uninflamed and unsymptomatic. You should get another MRI and see.

“Seems unlikely”? I just said it healed. I’m back to normal. I can climb again and I just started skate skiing again which requires kicking the leg out and back. A move I couldn’t do w the tear. Go be a negative elsewhere. Why the hell would I spend over $3k to see it healed? Dumbest thing I’ve heard. Just bc your tear didn’t heal doesn’t mean my didn’t. 

I had a left shoulder labral tear which healed over the course of 6 years without any sort of surgical intervention. The body is incredibly adaptive, just because your hip doesn’t hurt doesn’t mean it’s healed, especially over such a short time period.

Not having insurance is one thing but pretending you can see inside your own hip is silly. You don’t seem to know how to speak to people in any sense at all if you think what I said is negative.

Tara Storter wrote:

“Seems unlikely”? I just said it healed. I’m back to normal. I can climb again and I just started skate skiing again which requires kicking the leg out and back. A move I couldn’t do w the tear. Go be a negative elsewhere. Why the hell would I spend over $3k to see it healed? Dumbest thing I’ve heard. Just bc your tear didn’t heal doesn’t mean my didn’t. 

They’re saying it’s extremely likely that there’s still a tear, but it no longer causes you any pain. Most hip labrum tears in the general population cause no pain at all, so it’s very possible to live with it indefinitely. But it’s *extremely* unlikely a torn labrum will magically reconnect itself - all scientific literature I’ve seen says it’s actually impossible, but you see anecdotal experiences here and there that people claim theirs actually reconnected and healed, so perhaps there are random medical miracles out there. And sure, an MRI to confirm may not make sense now, but even an asymptomatic labral tear can deteriorate over time until you need a hip replacement due to irreversible arthritis, so there are logical reasons to confirm.

I just had my labrum reconstructed and have zero regrets about getting the surgery. My SO on the other hand has bilateral tears and is pain free 99% outside of random flair-ups every 6 or so months. He’s not planning to get surgery to repair them and can do everything he normally does. But his tears are absolutely still there, and he’s aware that there’s a solid chance they degenerate into arthritis in the next 10-20 years. A risk he’s willing to take though to not have to deal with a long recovery now!

I broke my femoral head and tore my labrum in 2015. At the time I raced bikes and after a full year of rehab I'd have issues losing power at the end of races in that side. We finally identified using motion capture and bike fitting tools that at high outputs my previously undiagnosed FAI on that side would push into my pelvic crest and the lack of labrum lead to it having instability that would slowly fatigue other muscles.

I was told I'd never race again or ride the same unless I had surgery to remove the FAI and repair the labrum. I was told they couldn't do both at once and it would be a year of surgeries and rehab.

I left the doctors office and went to the bouldering gym for the first time and haven't touched a bike since. It's been 7 years and I don't ever have pain or strength issues. I've managed to climb pretty hard and never had it prevent me from sending something. I do sometimes get weird sorenesses, but nothing debilitating. I'm not interested in surgery as a result.