A Pain in the ... Joints

As some of you may know I was born without hip sockets, well I just recently found out this is called Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip (DDH). When I was born the doctors put me in a harness thingy for a few months and told my mom I was good as new. After doing some research I found out that now doctors know they have to do years of follow up care for DDH because symptoms can become noticeable as late as the teens and twenties (I started having joint problems when I was 12). I also learned that if left untreated long enough it can cause severe Osteoarthritis. And I have all of the symptoms of improperly treated DDH. We're not 100% sure that's what the problem is, but it makes the most sense. I've never had any imaging of my hips or knees, probably because none of my doctors knew I had DDH (my mom had been told it wasn't an issue and I had no idea that I had it in the first place) so they never knew to look for it. Over the years I've had therapy to treat the symptoms, but nothing to treat the cause. Friday I got a serious of x-rays to see if there's still a significant deformity of my hip socket and if I have any arthritis developing. After that I'll likely have an MRI to determine if there are any soft-tissue concerns. Another part of DDH is that the "ring" of cartilage around the hip socket can be inverted causing it to be pretty much useless in keeping the hip in place. Also the tendons can become very stretched out, again reducing their effectiveness in keeping everything in place. The good news is that if my problem is a result of DDH, they know how to treat it. If we caught it early enough I could see a lot of improvement with properly aimed therapy and possibly injections. There's also several "levels" of surgery that can help. Hopefully I will soon have a path forward and get myself onto the road to recovery!