Second Opinion from Dr. Hughes OS

Today I saw Dr. Hughes for a second opinion on my hip.  The first thing he says is that he is good friends with Dr. Safran and trained  under Safran.  When he said this I though "oh great, theyre going to team up on me." (Dr. Safran doesnt have good interpersonal skills and is kinda  a know-it-all).  To my surprise Dr. Hughes had great interpersonal skills and was able to clearly explain my condition to me.  Dr. Hughes said I had a CAM and PINCER impingement. Dr. Safran said I only had a pincer impingement.

I have a mixed impingement

Dr. Hughes showed me the impingement on the MRI and it looked pretty obvious to me.  This is something I was born with and no amount of physical therapy will make the pain go away.  I need an operation. I should stop physical therapy now because it is hard to get stronger when I am in so much pain.  I should concentrate on physical therapy after another operation.  In other words, I dont need to get stronger before the next operation.  He suggest I have an operation as soon as possible, meaning this week.  I told him that I would think about it.  That is a lot to take in. 

Now, I have a big decision to make.  Should I have immediate surgery with Dr. Hughes?  He studied under Dr. Safran, is easy to talk to, listens to me, and has experience with this condition.  However, he might not be as experienced as Dr. Safran.   Or should I live with this unbearable pain another few months and hope Dr. Safran will agree that I need surgery?  Dr. Safran is suppose to be one of the best surgeons in the country, but his interpersonal skills are not that great and he doesn't seem empathetic to my pain.  For example he wouldn't give me a referral to a pain management doctor.

I am going to talk it over with my family and make a decision soon.

"
Also, I asked Dr. Hughes what the success rate is for this surgery and he said "[One study] published that the success rate is 85%, but.........."  When he said "but", my heart sank.  I thought he was going to say actually it is much lower than that.  He said, "but, with young patients it is actually higher than that."  Higher than an 85% success rate?  This put me on cloud nine!  I had delusions of having my life back.  Being able to go to the mall, walk up stairs, take a vacation!  I dont think I have ever been so excited about 85%.  But I dont want to get my hopes up too much.  My last surgery didnt help at all. If anything it set me back.  And my previous surgeon was so confident that I would be back to sports in 6 months.  It will be a year since my surgery this September and I still dread getting out of bed in the morning to walk to the bathroom.  If I never play sports again, I dont care,  I just want to be able to have a normal life where I can walk.  I feel like my life is on hold right now.

You can read about my last visit with Dr. Safran here 
http://hippyangie.blogspot.com/2011/06/saw-my-surgeon-quick-update.html