If your hip has become too damaged to avoid surgery, you may want to know what to expect. Your hip joint is a ball-and-socket joint, which means the top of your leg has an extension that ends in a ball-shaped tip. That tip fits into a hole that is in your pelvic bone. Your leg pivots, moves, or flexes when the ball tip turns inside the hole.

A hip replacement surgery will replace the ball and socket with a similarly-shaped device. The device will be made of metal or a synthetic material. That device will allow your leg to perform the same motions a healthy hip should make.

You will have to have help from a physical therapist or chiropractor after surgery, to allow the muscles around your hip joint to work together with your new hip device and let you move your leg normally. Once you get out of the recovery room after surgery, you will be brought to your hospital room. Later that same day, a physical therapist at the hospital will help you sit up and stand at the bedside. They will work with you for a day or two and help you begin to walk a few steps with the hip device. You will be in the hospital for a few days but when you go home, you will need additional practice with therapeutic exercises to help you walk normally and comfortably again. A physical therapist or chiropractor will help you learn exercises to strengthen your muscles and improve your endurance. In addition to helping you walk, you will also need help to properly:

• Go from your bed to and from a chair or wheelchair
• Go from a wheelchair or walker to and from the toilet
• Go up and down the stairs

The exercises will be very tiring and may cause you temporary moderate pain. The therapist will help you find the best ways to improve your endurance and relieve your pain.

Surgery is done after almost all hip fractures. Some hip fractures will require hip replacement; some can be repaired with stabilization surgery. Just as getting up and out of bed on the day of a hip replacement surgery is essential, you must also get up after a hip fracture stabilization. The sooner you begin moving, the better. Physical therapy may be difficult, but it is vital for your recovery. You are not only gaining strength with the surgical side of your body, but you are also preventing a fracture of the other hip.

Many exercises and procedures after a hip fracture will be similar to those after a hip replacement. The therapist will give you exercises to do at home and work with you at their office.

If you have pain in the groin area or hear clicking or popping of your hip joint when switching from walking to running, you may have hip flexor pain.

A hip labral injury is an injury to the tendons that hold the hip ball and joint together. This injury will cause severe pain and difficulty with or lack of walking ability.

Chiropractors can help you heal and recover from both these injuries. A trained chiropractor will help you reduce the pain in your hip movements with stretching, manual manipulation and adjustments. These injuries will also cause tension in your muscles, and a chiropractor can help ease that tension by properly stretching the muscles – and giving you exercises to help you continue to keep your hip aligned. When your hip is properly aligned, you will be able to be faster and stronger.

At Body Wellness Center, we create customized and highly effective post-surgical hip rehab programs that will help you heal your problems so you can get your mobility and strength back.

Our experienced, professional, and trusted hip rehab team at Body Wellness Center will conduct a thorough evaluation of your exact problem, find the root cause of the issue, and plan and execute your smoothest and quickest road to full recovery.

If you are experiencing any kind of hip related symptoms, do not hesitate to contact us today! To connect with us, you can either visit our website at www.bodywellnessnj.com or call us at (973) 246-9355.