(PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THIS IS MY PERSONAL OPINION BASED UPON YEARS OF NARCOTIC PAIN MEDICATION USE, CHIROPRACTIC CARE, INJECTIONS, PT, YADAYADAYADA. I AM NOT A DOCTOR.)

Now that we have that out of the way.....Pain is such a terrible concept to get used to. The natural response is to stop doing anything that causes pain because why? Because it stinking hurts right? While rest is good for pulled muscles and such, when your body goes through a serious physiological change like having a hip replaced as in your case, your body is no longer in its factory condition. This means that it will no longer work as it should but you only know how to use your body as you did prior to the surgery. Doing things as you once did is now painful but you cannot sit and wait for it to get better because it will not. You will never be as you once were but you can get the quality of life that you once had back but it won't be easy. I have had this argument with my mother when she broke her hip and she refuses to walk, depends on diet pills to keep her weight down and walks with a limp when she absolutely shouldn't.

I have always driven junk vehicles so that my wife could drive new ones. I would have to come up with ways to make them drive better by Jerry rigging them since I couldn't afford to get them back to factory condition. You will have to do this with your body but your not adding duct tape and coat hangers to your body, you are simply going to change how you do things. This is where trial and error comes into play. You have to learn little tricks in order to get by or as I like to call it, Cripple Trade Craft. Start looking for the movements that might not be pain free but the ones that hurt less. Take baby steps with this but you absolutely must increase your own activity level for if you don't, you will just get worse or stay the same, rely on pain medication (of which your doctor will eventually take away) and your life will never get any better. I HIGHLY suggest walking. No matter how much your doctor thinks he/she knows, many times the body will heal itself on its own. I couldn't so much as use a mop or a broom because the bending and twisting hurt so much. I went and bought an extension that painters use to reach high areas of houses and I screwed that into my broom and mop heads. Twisting and bending hurt so much but my arms were more than capable so I extended the handle so that I could stand straight up and simply use my arms in a sweeping motion without twisting and WOW! My floors never looked so good but the best part was that I was on my way up from the couch where I couldn't do anything and on the path to doing what I used to do.

This is not junk science. I laid up for 7 years doing the bare minimum until the military put me on up to 90 mg of oxycontin a day. I could do anything with that much pain medication in my system but I was hurting so bad that I never once so much as got drowsy. I was also a police officer during this time and no one was aware of the meds I was taking except that I was in better shape because I started working out again. When I was discharged from the military, my doctor stopped prescribing and the pain came back with a vengeance. I thought that I was above being dependent on the meds because I never abused them. It took two weeks for me to find that I was terribly mistaken. I laid on my couch and on the toilet for two months straight as I stopped taking the meds cold turkey and I never asked for medical intervention because I didn't want anyone to think that I was a junky.

Once the withdrawals were over, I had experienced the worst magnified pain in my life due to the narcotics no longer numbing my pain receptors so my pain threshold was extremely high. I gave up junk food. God knows that comfort eating is about all that you can have at your disposal to feel better when your crippled and suffering chronic pain. I began walking, doing yoga, and I worked harder than I have ever worked by doing only low resistance exercise except for-and this is where trial and error came in, and I know this will sound weird but splitting wood was the best exercise that I never would have thought would have gotten me back to health considering that so much as a sneeze when I was bent over would leave me in the fetal position on the floor with tears in my eyes. It was all trial and error but I had to take the initiative myself to get better. And it will never get easier. I spent nine years listening to doctors and allowing them to fill me with enough medication that would kill a horse before I gave up on them telling me I was just going to have to deal with it. When I let my body show me what I could and couldn't do, I did the hell out of what I could and stayed away from the stuff that I couldn't. When I get lazy, my body lets me know because my legs go numb, nerve pain comes back along with the huge muscle spasms and I start limping again so I get off my butt and limp a mile or two a day for a week and get back on track. What worked for me will not necessarily work for you but do not stand by and wait for a doctor to prescribe you into being productive again because that is not their business. Arthritis and chronic pain are lucrative businesses and by law, they do not have to even inform you of a cure if there is one for your illness so you must do the work yourself to get your mobility back. I am not saying that you should ignore your doctors, but remember this, their business is to keep you coming back for a pill or an injection. They will never break their necks to keep you from coming back because just like a cocaine dealer, they make their living off of repeat customers.