Levi E.

When I was 23, I started developing hip pain shortly after beginning my first corporate job. I’ve always been extremely active, particularly focused on weight lifting. Fairly rapidly, I couldn’t walk without pain. I started going to doctors, specialists, bone experts, and had countless X-ray’s done and even 2 MRI’s but none of the doctors could help me. The doctors would offer pain relief through heavy anti inflammatory drugs or cortisone shots, but the pain always came back with a vengeance. They always recommended surgery but said they couldn’t know the exact issue (or even if there really was one) until they’d cut me open!

I tried several things on my own. I altered my diet to be more anti inflammatory and consumed copious amounts of fish oil because one doctor misdiagnosed me with gout. I visited physical therapists which often only made the pain worse. Through all of the doctors and consultations I believe I paid around $3000 out of pocket to doctors and nothing helped.

Through the years of pain, I continued working out and even completed a triathlon but was always having to work around the pain and couldn’t live the life I wanted to. Working out and being active was such a big part of who I was and my hip pain was taking this part of my identity from me. I couldn’t believe I was 25 and having to make compromises on if I could go hiking or not because of the severity of pain.

After 3+ years of this pain, and stumbling online trying to find any relief, I eventually found the FAI Fix. I thought it was too good to be true, so I suffered another grueling year of pain. It was to the point where it was all I could think about everyday. I couldn’t complete basic tasks without that nagging pain and I was becoming a different grumpy person. Eventually I talked to a bone surgeon who said the shaving of my hip was the only option to relief. The day before I was about to book the surgery I thought if I don’t try everything I can before this surgery I’ll regret it so I gave myself a month timeline to try the FAI Fix and if I wasn’t feeling better then I was going to do the surgery. After the first week I noticed more range of motion and less pain. After two weeks I was able to take my dog on walks again. After the month ended I was beginning to be able to jog again. I then postponed the surgery indefinitely and after 4 months of religiously following the program I was able to begin deadlifting and squatting again. I cannot express how happy and joyful I am to lift weights again because that was and now is again such a big part of my life. I’m a happier and more optimistic person because I’m living without daily pain. I still do my exercises daily and it’s not perfect, but it’s much better. There are still days where it feels painful and I still don’t have the range of motion I used to, but I hope as I keep doing the program it’ll continue to get better!