I've been told I have hip impingent (FAI / femoroacetabular impingement). Is there hope that I can heal?
Getting the "FAI" diagnosis can be scary. Being told you MUST get surgery can feel even worse.
I encourage you to start reading up on the actual science behind FAI and hip pain. Once you understand what the research really says, you’ll see that many people can improve without surgery.
A Brief Summary
When every doctor and physical therapist tells you that your bone shapes are the cause of your hip pain and only surgery can fix you, choosing surgery seems like the only rational answer. Thousands of "experts" cannot be wrong, can they?
If the orthopedic surgical perspective on hip impingement is correct we should see three clear pieces of evidence:
1. Cam and pincer "defects" shown in an X-ray or MRI should show a strong causal relationship to pain, mobility problems, and the oft-cited arthritis. If a strong relationship isn't evident in the young, older people with the bone "defects" should show increasing prevalence and intensity of problems as they age.
2. There should be some valid tests that can demonstrate a bone "defect" that corroborates what is seen in X-rays and MRIs.
3. Surgeries to fix the bone "defects" should fix the pain and mobility issues reliably with high patient satisfaction rates and return to fully normal hip function.
In reality, we can see NONE of these three phenomena. Instead, we see (click on each for more details):
1. No link between bone shapes and hip problems.
2. No valid tests to corroborate anything on X-ray and MRI.
In short, there's something profoundly wrong with the orthopedic approach to hip impingement, and the weight of scientific evidence is clearly against surgical intervention.