[jsewell]

I am so happy to hear you have a good set of doctors. Nothing like a patient in the waiting room to tell you that. And he listened to you. Good deal.
The hip pain. Well i went through that in 2008. The doc as well as my spine surgeon did not think my MRI or Ct (i forget) looked bad enough for a hip replacement. But it did look like possible need for some repair of a labral tear. So my new hip surgeon did an arthroscopic hip surgery . When he was in there he found that both of my hip surfaces were worn away to bone. So i did try to see if the surgery would help at all (he did microfracture to try to grow some cartilage) It did not seem to be working so i had the right hip replaced in June 2008. That surgery , if you need it, has something like a 98% satisfaction rate. They really know what they are doing there. The usual pain from your hip is gone instantly., You do have surgical pain which gets better every day. At 3 months out i was back to hiking. At 3 weeks my doc let me swim and i was swimming a mile each day (about 5 times a week) So hiking for 7 miles then swimming , i was in the best shape . Then i did still have knee pain on that side so he did an arthroscopy and cleaned out the joint (lots of scar tissue) and did micr fracture to stimulate new cartilage growth,. It worked wonderfully

Boy sorry i am making this so long. Just don't want you to really worry about the hip replacement.

As far as walking with back pain, it is difficult. I now have pain when i am walking or standing in place. It sucks. Some lower around my hips too, but i know that is coming from my spine. I have a new lumbar fracture. I saw my spine surgeon today, i will be having more surgery when he gets back in town, he has not decided it he will extend the fusion to L5 or just fix the fracture at L4. I see him on June 4th after his vacation.
My foot is still swollen, although i can get it in shoes, just a little surgical pain , no hammertoe pain. Now for the other foot!!

Let me know what you find out on the 8th.
take care
judy