Welcome to My Blog!

I've been diagnosed with a small labral tear and mixed Femoroacetabular Impingement (FAI) in my right hip. This blog follows my efforts to do something about it.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Deciphering x-ray images

Picture time! Here are my x-ray images from the end of last year (from which I've cropped out the text). I think I understand a little better what might be the extra bony part on the CAM and Pincer, though I'm still far from sure. I've been trying to compare my pics with others online and I suppose that given my complete lack of medical training, I may simply be wasting my time. But I think it helps me to wrap my head around my hip issues when I can visualize the problem. This one is me with my right leg in a bent position:


And below is my right hip in a neutral position:



I'm not sure what to make out of any of this. I think I looked pretty much the same in the subsequent x-rays that were taken more recently. Here's the one with my right leg bent:




And here's one of my right hip in a neutral position:



So I'm not sure what to make of any of this. I looked at the x-ray of both hips, and decided that, in my lay opinion, the left hip looks as bad as the right one. That is, if I'm looking at the correct portion of the hip socket -- which I very well may not be. This is the left hip in a neutral position:


So, other than the fact that now my blog has pictures, I don't know what value any of this really adds. I'm not comfortable posting my MRI pics because I REALLY don't understand what I'm looking at, and for some reason, it seems a little too personal to share on the Internet. (But it's truly amazing and somewhat mindblowing just how much of our insides can be revealed through an MRI). 

Anyway, enjoy the pretty pics!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Janet!

    From what I can tell the right hip looks worse in terms of the pincer form of FAI. This is just my personal opinion from what I see when I look at the x-ray. The pincer form is impingement coming from the acetabulum (hip joint) and cam is coming from the femoral head or femoral neck! Hope that helps!

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