Knee immobilizer and hip pain

**Aenigma** · 12-30-2007, 01:48 PM

I've been in a knee immobilizer for about four days now, and the past couple days my hip (gimpy side) has started to really hurt. I haven't been doing a lot of walking--just around the house and a few errands. Is this normal, and is there a way to prevent/minimize the pain?

**orangey** · 12-31-2007, 02:44 PM

I felt the same way. When using the immobilzer, instead of bending my knee to move my foot forward, I swung my leg around using my hip. Hip got sore and I thought I was going to throw my back out. Other hip hurt, too since I kept most of my weight on the other leg. But about the time that I thought I couldn't stand it anymore, the immobilizer came off and hip stopped hurting. I think our bodies have a way of telling us when it's time to move on. Loved my crutches for a few days when I couldn't weight bear but started hating them as knee started feeling better; loved the knee immobilzer when knee felt like it would collapse in upon itself but hated it as knee grew stronger; loved knee brace when I first started hiking, running but grew to hate it as leg got back to normal. A friend from PT actually burned her immobilzer on the grill. I just threw mine in the back of the closet where the evil crutches and brace now live. I avoid that closet.

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**creaky fossil** · 06-12-2014, 08:33 AM

Originally Posted by Aenigma

I've been in a knee immobilizer for about four days now, and the past couple days my hip (gimpy side) has started to really hurt. I haven't been doing a lot of walking--just around the house and a few errands. Is this normal, and is there a way to prevent/minimize the pain?

It's the shift in your normal walking gait. Compensation discomfort. In the pleistocene when I had my right ACL fixed, I spent 10-12 weeks post-op in an immobilizer. MD and PT both advised about the gait issue and part of my therapy was returning the normal gait. Don't know what to say about minimizing the pain/discomfort other than be aware of gait modification and maybe -- wonder whether the injury went beyond the knee? I'd assume MD would have caught that, though.