u/SuchImportance6259

Hey everyone,
I’m 8 days away from hip arthroscopy, and honestly, I’m starting to panic a bit about whether I’m making the right decision. I’d really appreciate hearing from people who had similar symptoms, especially if your pain was intermittent or not severe all the time.
I’ve had hip pain for about two and a half years. It started after a period of intense physical activity, a lot of dancing, and also after some long sex sessions that seemed to really aggravate the hip.
At the beginning, I had a big flare-up. I was limping for around two weeks, then the pain slowly started to settle down. After that, I began getting scans and seeing different surgeons.
The first MRIs suggested a worn or degenerative labrum, mild CAM impingement, and an alpha angle of around 70 degrees. The surgical opinions were mixed. Some surgeons were convinced the labrum was torn, even though the tear was not completely obvious on the MRI. Others thought it might be better to wait and not rush into surgery.
Over time, I have gradually improved, which is exactly why this decision feels so difficult now.
At the moment, I don’t have constant pain. I mainly get pain with running and cycling, but even that is inconsistent. Some days I have to stop cycling after two minutes. Other days I can ride for 15 minutes and feel almost fine. I honestly don’t understand the pattern.
I also get a little pain when walking, especially when I first start walking after sitting for a while, but it usually fades quickly once I get moving. I have absolutely no pain sitting, sleeping, or resting.
My latest MRI shows damage in the chondrolabral area and possibly a tiny/millimetric labral tear. My local surgeon wants to operate because he thinks there may be early chondral delamination, especially around the chondrolabral junction, with grade 1–2 type damage.
So now I’m stuck in this weird place mentally: part of me thinks, “Maybe I should fix this before it gets worse,” and another part of me thinks, “What if I’m about to have surgery when my symptoms are not even that bad anymore?”
Has anyone here gone into surgery with symptoms like this — pain mainly with running/cycling, some startup pain when walking, but no pain at rest or sitting?
Did surgery help you?
Or did anyone cancel/postpone surgery because things had improved, and later feel that was the right or wrong decision?
I know nobody can make the decision for me, but I’d really value hearing real experiences from people who’ve been through this.

I’ve been dealing with hip pain for about 2 years and 3 months now, without surgery. At the beginning I could barely walk and had a bad limp, especially on my right side. Now things are very different: most days I can walk, go up and down stairs, squat, jump, cycle, and even run, and the pain is nowhere near what it used to be. These are the kinds of daily-life movements that I’d say matter even more than cycling.

At this point, my right hip mostly hurts with a FABER-type position / external rotation, sometimes when I start walking, and not always. I can ride a bike, although when I get off the bike I sometimes get pain for a few seconds. Because of this improvement, I’m seriously wondering whether I should keep managing this conservatively instead of going for surgery. Has anyone else improved this much after a long time with FAI/labral tear and decided not to operate? What would you do in this situation?