How painful is a hip arthroscopy?

Depends: The hip arthroscopy is still young. Depending on the expertise of your surgeon, and the amount of work to be done, the hip arthroscopy can be minimally painful or can be very uncomfortable for months. When we reshape the bone and repair the labrum, it is a good amount of surgery (though less than an open surgery). If we just look or clean up, it is quite benign.

Not much: Most of my patients report very little pain despite big surgery. The hip is very forgiving regarding pain.

Mild-moderate pain: Hip arthroscopy is a diagnostic and therapeutic surgical procedure that entails placing a small camera the width of a pencil into the hip through a small 1 cm incision. Other similar incisions about the hip region allow instruments to be carefully placed into the hip to treat various injuries. Usually an outpatient procedure with pain well-controlled by oral (pill) narcotic medications.