Non-emergency, planned surgical procedures are being postponed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. If your hip surgery has been postponed, here’s what you can do to reduce hip pain and preserve hip function while waiting for your procedure.
Modify your activities: While it is true that exercising before surgery helps improve surgical outcomes, subjecting your hip to high-impact activities is not the best thing to do. Avoid activities such as jogging, skipping, or anything that causes hip pain. Limit your activities to walking on a treadmill, using an elliptical trainer, swimming, or riding a stationary bike. These are low impact exercises that help preserve the joint while also toning your hip muscles.
Keep Your Weight Down: The hip joint is one of the major weight-bearing joints of the body and is subject to a lot of stress with most activities of daily living. Losing excess weight will significantly relieve hip pain and reduce wear and tear within the hip joint.
Over-the-counter Pain Medications: Anti-inflammatories play a role in reducing inflammation and swelling in your joint, as long as it’s okay with your doctor. Note that people with kidney disease or stomach trouble may not be able to take these medications.
Assistive devices: Consider usinga hip brace, cane, walker, or crutches depending on the severity of your symptoms and your doctor’s recommendation. These devices will help protect the hip by reducing some of the stress on the joint.
Hip Injections: Ultrasound-guided steroid injections or orthobiologic injections can help provide pain relief for quite a long time and may stimulate the healing and re-growth of damaged tissues. These injections can be administered in the outpatient setting.
Dr. Domb and his team treat patients in a private facility, and therefore continue to see and accept new patients with hip and knee pain issues. The AHI team can do this both in-person and through telemedicine. For more information, please call (833) 872-4477.
Dr. Benjamin Domb is an orthopaedic surgeon specializing in Sports Medicine and Hip Arthroscopy. He is the Founder and Medical Director at American Hip Institute, is rated amongst the Top Doctors in the USA by the NY Times, US News & World Report, and Castle Connelly. The doctors at the American Hip Institute® have been global leaders in Hip Arthroscopy and Robotic Surgery for over a decade. While some would call this excellence, we simply call it the American Hip Institute standard.
