bursitis, I guess...

There has been some on-going weirdness here. Some weeks ago, probably about three months, I started having some strange pains in my  left hip that gradually decided to travel downhill and occupy my knee joint as well - but only on the left side. To add even greater oddity to this - it only occurred when I was lying flat on my back: meaning when I would go to bed at night.

Needless to say, when something this out-of-the-blue unlikely occurs, we tend to immediately self-diagnose with a Worst Case Scenario.  The good news is that the only time I found it  necessary to devote any time to fretting over some obscure, unfathomable terminal disease was in the wee hours of the night, when turning over in my sleep would cause the ache to be so acute I would wake up with a major case of Dread.

I went to the chiropractor, (on-going for a couple of years) for my monthly visit, and described the problem, back at the end of December. She said: 'sounds like bursitis'. I said: 'what's that?' and 'sounds like some thing only grandmother's have?' Then I remembered a recurring problem with the bursa in an elbow that happened around here a couple of years ago. It sorta occurred spontaneously, and resolved itself incrementally, without much attention. I'd wondered, and hoped that the diagnosis for my strangely aching hip would eventually just fade away in the same manner. But alas....

So I decided to call the Orthopedic clinic at a local hospital and try to get an appointment. I phoned last Monday, optimistically thinking that I might be able to see a specialist by mid-March, and was told I could come in the following afternoon. I was not quite ready for such a rapid response - but took the appt. and went to see the young bone guy. He looked at x-rays and said: 'Bursitis'. Gave me a HolyCowOhMyGosh injection of cortisone in my hip and said come back in three weeks. It felt better by bed time, and I think I might be cured.

He said that it would probably help with the knee pain as well, as it was likely something that was caused or influenced by the problem in the hip, and resolving the upper joint pain would ease the knee too. How do they do that? I looked at that x-ray image of both hips - and honestly could not see anything at all different in left and right. How do they know? I guess that's why they make the big money?

I have even surprised myself: with the fact that I have yet to google up bursitis... if you know anything at all about it - you know more than I do. Guess it's time to crank up the google...(I just looked - saved you the time to go over there and come back here...)

So what it actually is, according to Dr. Google is an inflammation of the little cushion-y thing that keeps the bones in the joint from grinding upon each other. Sounds like a necessary, valuable, important job to me, so I am thankful for all my bursa, and hope that the HolyCow injection I got is long-lasting and 101% effective.