susan
I have suffered but I have to now manage the daily pain from bilateral hip bursitis. I have had the bursa removed twice and it does grow back contrary to one of the messages on here and I had the it band resected. Each surgery completely failed. There are varying degrees of severity of pain and sometimes the bursitis just burns itself out according to my doctor. Deb lives near me. She may not be as severe as you are. I am on morphine daily to manage my pain and it helps except if it stays damp for days at a time. She has had several ( about 40 injections at a time called prolotherapy) you can get a lot of information on the internet but she personally told me recently that it gave her about 10 percent relief and insurance does not cover it. Most of the procedures she has done are alternative. She has spent a lot of money now probably about $50,000 on treatment all alternative and she cannot say one thing has been the answer that is why I wander if time and maybe she was not that bad to begin with because she was getting by on tylenol for along time. To tell you some of the alternative treatments she has had and she does make sure for example she sees a accupuncturist and he is not just a trained dr. in accupuncture, she spends the extra money to go to one who is certified. She also saw an energy healer or something to that effect and went to Conn.to the institute they train in to get more therapy so she stayed there a week or so and insurance did not cover that either, then she went to Annapolis, Md. from Va. to get prolotherapy to a dr. who had trained in that, then she went to Chicago and stayed a couple weeks for more prolotherapy to the people who developed that technique. I have always believed in our medical system and I still do but I realize with our situation that you cannot fix soft tissue at least not as of yet. My opinion after living with this 6 years on may 12, i remember the date that is how bad the pain is, the best way to try and live your life now is to get a good pain management dr.I am on 80 mg of oxycotin 3 times a day with 4mg of zanaflex six times a day or as needed that is a muscle spasm reliever for the pain in the it band which is very tender especially when it rains or gets ready to rain. The main thing I would do is go see a pain dr. and do not have surgery unless they give you better than 50/50 . Everyone's pain level with this is different. A lot of people can go have a couple of cortizone shots, I had 20 which did not touch my pain, that maybe an answer for you, they numb it up and a lot of people worry about the shot but the pain from the hip is a lot worse than the shot. I also had trigger point injections, they hurt!! Also someone on here said take gluco, I cannot even think of the full name but I took them for 30 days and had an allergic reaction so bad I broke out in hives for over a month and had to go on 2 courses of prednisone to stop the itching, it was horrible. I have done everything I can think of and with the help of the pain dr. I am trying to make it and I know life is not the way it used to be but I am trying to make the best of the time that I do get my pain under control .