Wednesday, March 26, 2014

a possible breakthrough on the hip front?

When my hip pain originally began about three weeks ago, I could have sworn that the problem was something like a dislocation. Range of motion became restricted, and it truly felt as if the head of the left femur had slid, ever so slightly, out of the ball-and-socket joint of the hip. Not being a doctor, and not having any understanding of the complex network of muscles, tendons, and other connective tissue in that region of my body, I had no idea whether a partial dislocation was even possible: it could well be that, with a hip joint, a dislocation is an all-or-nothing proposition—either the joint is in, or it's popped all the way out.

But last night, I rolled over in bed and felt a small but very distinct pop when my body put pressure on my left hip. Since that moment—almost eight hours ago, now—I've taken no aspirin, which is a first since this whole stupid affair began. My range of motion is still restricted: swinging or rotating my thigh too far in certain directions still produces pain. But I have a feeling that whatever was wrong, earlier, has now righted itself.

So I'm going to experiment on myself this morning by not taking any aspirin until I absolutely need it. I've got a long walk to campus ahead of me. If there's pain to be experienced, that walk will conjure it up. We'll see how far I can go. That tiny pop seems to represent progress, given that I haven't needed aspirin for a third of a day, but does it represent significant progress?

UPDATE: I've been aspirin-free for eight hours. There's still some vestigial pain, but it's the sort of pain one would expect after a dislocated joint has popped back into its proper socket. There's been no debilitating pain at all; I limp slightly, but am otherwise walking normally. This comes as a relief; I was starting to worry that taking too much aspirin would lead to a stroke if I sneezed too hard (or pushed too hard while on the toilet!).


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4 comments:

John McCrarey said...

Good news. You are still going to see the doctor on Friday, right?

Kevin Kim said...

Thanks. I'm probably going to wait until after I'm paid, which will be the 15th of the month. That same weekend, however, I have to go to Seoul for KMA work, so at the earliest, I won't get to a doc until the weekend of the 22nd.

Then again, if the lingering pain also goes away over the next few days, I might nix the doc altogether.

Charles said...

Well, hopefully this will be the break (from the pain, that is) that you needed. Fingers crossed.

King Baeksu said...

Dude, you have health insurance, with an added discount on top of that as a 대가대 employee if you visit a 대가대 hospital. You're paying good money for your monthly premiums – why let it go to waste?

I'm sure you know the expression "penny wise, pound foolish." A health problem that may be cheap to deal with today may be far more expensive to remedy years down the line.