Constant hip/back pain, Femoracetabular Impingement, 9 month wait for consultant any advice?

Hello

I'm 39, female and have always had very clunky hips. For many years I would have a feeling like they were not sitting right, like slightly out of their socket and I would need to do a little movement to click them back in so I could move properly. I never thought of this as odd as all my joints were like this and it wasn't all that painful and was just the way I was. But about a year ago things started to get painful. It started to hurt when walking, my left hip had a crunching feeling, as though the bone wasn't sitting right but I could no longer pop it back in. I walking hurts. It feels like bone on bone. I would get aching feelings at the top of my thighs, a more acute pain in my groin and a very painful lower back that feels more like a nerve type pain, particularly when I'm in any position for prolonged periods, so this usually wakes me and makes sleeping difficult . I would also get a feeling in my hips that I can only describe as being like there was a knitting needle being stabbed into the joint. I was a very active person, exercised a lot, did weight lifting when this issue started and then started doing yoga, have been practicing yoga 2 years. I've been told that I'm hypermobile.

I went to physio for about 4 months, I was very good with doing my exercises and during this time my pain and mobility got much worse, and I I don't know if that was just this issue progressing or the physio. They suggested I see a my Dr, get blood tests and x-ray. The bloods were fine but x-ray came back saying I had Femoracetabular Impingement but the GP didn't explain much about this and referred me to orthopaedics, which has a 9 month wait. I'll be seen in March.

I'm really struggling to manage my pain at the moment. I also have chronic fatigue syndrome. My fatigue started around the same time that my hips started to feel different. I know that when my hip and back pain is bad, my fatigue is much worse. I just don't know in which way they're related.

I hate using pain killers, normally I would never use anything but recently I have started to use things a lot more to try and improve my quality of life. Paracetamol can take the edge off when it's dull pain. The only thing that seems to help when it's bad is codeine but I'm now finding it's really bad a lot more often and I know that's addictive so I'm not taking it as regularly as I'd like to. I don't want to take nsaids as I know the havoc they play with the gut and I've had ibs in the past and worked so bad to resolve this.

I wondered if anyone had any advice about what I could do that could possibly help me just now managing this.

I've also been prescribed a low dose amatriptaline but I've been too scared to start as it has so many side effects. I was going to wait until I'd seen the consultant but it's just so long away.

Can anyone share any advice or experiences that could help?

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