Case Summary  |  Ongoing hip pain

All I will say is that I first developed hip pain around March, 2000 while undergoing treatment for an unrelated pain condition, CRPS of my right foot and ankle which later spread to both feet and entire right leg.
I was referred to a Chinese doctor who examined me and found something wrong with my left hip, though he did not tell me the diagnosis in English. He performed acupuncture and though it did not help my CRPS at all it made my hip pain disappear for several years.

In the summer of 2008 the hip pain came back, radiating down my leg to my knee. My MD at the time thought it was thochanteric bursitis and increased my NSAIDS, which helped a bit. She also encouraged gentle stretching and walking when I could tolerate it. However, walking has continued to aggravate the pain.

The doctor also sent me to Physical Therapy, but the therapist felt that the pain was related to my lumbar spine, not bursitis. He felt that I had not been doing anything to cause bursitis, and upon examining me he observed that I walked tilted way to the right, which was probably to help alleviate the pain caused by the facet joints on the left. He worked with me on strengthening my core and pelvic floor muscles , but the exercises proved too vigorous and made my pain-including my CRPS pain, worse. Shortly afterward I stopped PT. This was in November, 2009.

In May, 2010 I decided to try once again to get some treatment for the hip pain, which was severe. I was and still am receiving multiple medications for my CRPS and related Central Pain Disorder, (possibly fibromyalgia) but this does not help my hip much at all. (Although for a while I ran out of my Effexor and Naproxyn and my hip/knee/ pain became almost unbearable, to they must help some.) The Pain Specialist agreed that most of the pain on my left side was almost certainly due to my lumbar spine, and recommended that I get an MRI to confirm the diagnosis. However, the co-pay for the MRI is prohibitive right now; I am unemployed and my only income is Social Security Disability so I have no money at all. What's more, given my CRPS it is unlikely that I would tolerate any interventional pain treatment or that any would be attempted unless my pain became unmanageable or I began to lose function. Therefore right now all I can do is "sit and wait" and hope that it gets better or bad enough to cause intervention to become an emergency.