Hip Labral Tear – An Update 4 years Later

I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me after finding my blog posts about my hip labral tear that I was diagnosed with 4 years ago. I was lucky because I never had surgery and 4 years later I am running pain-free.

People ask how I healed it, and I realized I never wrote a concluding blog post, so here we are 4 years later with a recap of the longest injury I have ever had (10 months long) and what I did to heal it.

Here is a quick recap of my history:

June 2016 – I ran Grandma’s Marathon and the next week my hip really started bothering me. The pain was on the anterior part of my hip flexor, right in the crease of my hip. I would feel it as I brought my leg forward during my running gait. I initially took some time off and tried to rehab it on my own.

November 2016 – After seeing several different doctors with no significant improvement, I decided to have an MRI done. I had an MRI and a steroid shot at the same time, and was officially diagnosed with a hip labral tear and CAM lesion after that. I was beyond devastated because a hip labral tear wasn’t even on my radar as I wasn’t having the classic symptoms of a labral tear.

Fall 2016/Winter 2017 – I did anything and everything to avoid surgery and tried to heal it on its own. I saw several different doctors, physical therapists, a massage therapist, and a sports chiropractor during this time. I had dry needling done, was prescribed exercises, had ART (active release technique) done, and was given a steroid shot.

June 2016 – April 2017 – I ran some here and there during these 10 months, but I also took a lot of time off. I took up to a month off with no real progress. Every day felt like one step forward but two steps back. At its worst, my hip bothered me when walking, and it bothered me nearly every run I did.

May 2017 – I finally met with a doctor to determine if surgery was necessary. I thought for sure he was going to recommend surgery. But at this point, I was starting to make progress and it was actually starting to get better. He told me that since I was getting better it wasn’t necessary to do surgery. I have never been more relieved in my life.

June 2017 – Miraculously, things started to take a turn for the better, and I started to have less pain and feel better each week. That summer I was able to make some headway towards my big goal of a sub-3 hour marathon.

October 2017 – I ran my marathon PR of 3:02 at Twin Cities Marathon. I was really hoping to break 3 hours in the marathon, but my build-up was just too short.

It was a long 10 months of being really down the whole situation, not being able to train in the way I wanted to, and just not feeling like myself. I tried to remain hopeful during this time, but it was a really hard time for me!

Here are the blog posts that I wrote that directly talk about the hip labral tear.

My first blog post on my injury was when it first started bothering me: Recovering from a Marathon

The second blog post: Hip Update and MRI Results has a lot more details as far as how the bone structure of my hip caused the hip labral tear, the steroid shot I got, and what I was expecting the doctor to say vs what he actually told me the MRI revealed.

During the winter I was actually able to get a decent amount of miles in with the help of the steroid shot. This Hip Labral Tear Update post talks more about that.

I then wrote Another Hip Update in April as the snow was melting, and I was able to run on dry surfaces again. For whatever reason this seemed to make a big difference, and my pain started going away. (However, when it first flared up the previous summer the dry pavement didn’t seem to matter.) This blog post also breaks down the timeline and gives more details during those 10 months.

Finally I wrote The Doctor’s Diagnosis where the doctor did not see any reason to do surgery since I had been running pain-free for several weeks.

So what ultimately healed it? Honestly, I don’t know for sure. I tried a lot of different things, but it seems like time, a lot of prayers, and ART (active release technique) from my sports chiropractor (Dr. Cain at Active Health Solutions in Anchorage) really seemed to make a biggest difference.

Since this time, I have only had a couple of minor hip flares up a couple of times and for only a couple of days at a time. I have been very fortunate and lucky, and I definitely count my blessings each day.

I went on to run the NYC Marathon in November 2018 before having my second child in 2019. I had intentions of running CIM (California International Marathon) this December, but it has since been canceled. I don’t know when my next marathon will be, but for the time being I am so grateful to be running pain-free, training the way I want to, and enjoying the process.