Hi,

About 2-3 months ago, I started having some occasional "sharp" pain in
the left groin area, mainly when lifting my left leg (e.g., climbing
stairs).

I first went to my general practitioner, who sent me to get hip Xrays
and MRI.  He indicated that it looked like hip arthritis, and sent me to
 an orthopedic surgeon.  I saw him, and he said that the arthritis was
not severe enough to explain the groin pain, and prescribed 4 weeks of PT.

I just started the PT, and when I talked to the therapist afterwards,
she said that she "didn't understand" what she found, and she wanted to
talk to the orthopedic surgeon.  I couldn't get much more from her, but
one of the things that I noticed during our session was that she seemed
kind of surprised when she put an ankle weight on my left leg and had me
stand on a platform (with my left leg dangling).  I told her that hurt,
and she said something like "oh, that should have made it feel better" :(...

Anyway, aside from the groin pain, I am occasionally having another
problem when I'm sitting and, with the slightest motion, it feels like
something is "locking".  It's very painful, and the pain is more in the
area of the left/inside buttock area.

So, this weekend, I started searching the 'net again, and found info on
something called a "torn labrum" or "labral tear".  From the info I
found, the symptoms that I have seem to match this condition very well.

I've never heard of this before, so I'm looking for more information
about it.  Has anyone had this condition before?  Do the symptoms that
I've described sound similar?  Also, what to do about it?

I've found a clinic in my area (Northern Virginia, near Washington, DC)
that seems to at least be aware of it, and their website talks about
orthroscopic surgery?  I'm going to try to get an appointment next week,
but any information that anyone can provide on this would be greatly
appreciated!

Thanks,
Jim