I am very depressed by this diagnosis of osteoarthritis.
You can see with red line a bone spur and also that the dark space between the ball of the hip joint on the left hip is gone on the right hip.
All of my leisure activities revolve around intense exercise – running, golf, climbing, etc. Golf I think especially is hard on my hip joint as the backswing involves pushing hard into the right hip while rotating around on it. I also carry a heavy golf bag a long ways up and down hills. Running has repeated impacts on the hip joint.
A lot of my identity and vision of myself are as a big strong athletic capable guy. I always thought I would be a fit and healthy dad playing basketball and running with my kids.
Everything I am reading says this is not reversible and the best I can hope for is to slow the rate of descent. At some point I would have to undergo very major and painful surgery to replace the joint which still won’t give me anything back but just extend my hip another 10-20 years depending on my luck.