Today's case comes to us from one of my colleagues and classmates, Kathryn Deterding, ATC. Kathryn consulted with me about this case and then went on to implement a treatment protocol based off our discussion.
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A Case of Bilateral Femoral Acetabular Impingement(FAI) and Labral Tears in a Collegiate Soccer Player.
History: This was a 21 year old male collegiate soccer player. In the fall of 2011 he began to experience hip pain that he played through. In the upcoming spring of 2012 he was diagnosed with bilateral FAI and tried to rehabilitate his injury to prepare for the fall season of 2012. The fall season was just as painful as the previous season. This athlete then underwent two different surgical procedures in the winter of 2012. One for each hip, in attempt to lessen his FAI and correct additional labral tears of the hip. The athlete had minimal rehab for a month or so after his surgeries and refrained from heavy activity for a few months.
Upon increasing activity to prepare for the fall 2013 season of soccer the athlete began to experience the same pain and symptoms. He consulted with an orthopaedic surgeon during the preseason and the physician told him that he may not see any improvements and that this was something that he most likely was going to have to live with.
It was at this point that Kathryn and I discussed the athlete's case together and came up with a plan of care. The first thing that I did was discuss thought viruses with the athlete and talked about how current neuroscience is teaching us that pain is not necessarily patho-anatomically based but is a construct of the central nervous system. The athlete admitted to thinking that all of this discussion was a load of hogwash and didn't buy into any of what I said. Nevertheless, we continued on with our plan of care.