week 7 · last reviewed 2026-06-11
PAO recovery: week 7
Clinical procedure: Periacetabular osteotomy (PAO).
Typical, evidence-anchored estimate only. It is not medical advice, not a prediction for your body, and not a substitute for your surgeon or clinician.
what's typical at week 7
typical pain · week 7
Around week 7, the typical pain band sits at 2.8/10 (range 0.3–6.3). This is a soft, interpolated read: this exact week wasn't measured, so the band is bridged between the nearest measured points. Treat it as a rough guide, not a target to hit.
weeks 2–8
Weeks 2-8 · the long protected stretch
This is the part nobody warns you about emotionally: pain drops to a 2-3/10 plateau by week three and mostly stays there, but you are still on two crutches at a quarter of your body weight, because the bone simply isn't ready. The diary cohort's averages fluctuated between 2.0 and 3.0 from day 20 through day 42 — recovery here is measured on the x-ray, not on the pain scale.
The Delphi consensus that North American hip-preservation physios published in 2022 keeps this phase deliberately boring: hip flexion limited to about 90 degrees and external rotation to about 20 for the first four to six weeks, a stationary bike from week six-ish, and no decisions about weight-bearing made by feel. The protected period ends when your surgeon sees consolidation — six weeks in about a fifth of published protocols, eight in another fifth.
Use the time for the things rehab can legitimately progress: upper body, the non-operative leg, core work within the motion limits, and sleep logistics. People who treat this stretch as a project tend to come out of it less deconditioned than people who treat it as a sentence.
documented at this week
This week
Bike first, then elliptical; crutches go on criteria
Stationary bike enters at weeks 6-8 and elliptical at 10-12. Crutch discharge is criterion-based — gait without a lurch or limp — not a fixed week. Full weight bearing typically lands at weeks 8-12.
Coming up
Driving is a 12-week milestone here
Brake reaction times were still significantly slowed at 6 weeks and back to baseline by 12 — the study's conclusion: most patients are likely not safe to drive at 6 weeks but should be by 12.
Back to work
Work returns on a long, known curve
Cumulative return to work: 11.6% by week 6, 38.6% by 12, 62% by 18, 85.7% by 24, and 97.4% by a year — median 16 weeks. Being out this long is the documented norm for PAO, not a slow recovery.
milestones around now
- wk 10 ·Full weight-bearing established (8-12 weeks, gated by x-ray consolidation; protocol-dependent)
- wk 11 ·Off crutches / normalized gait (Criterion-based during weeks 6-12 (symmetric gait, no Trendelenburg), not a fixed week)
- wk 12 ·Return to driving (brake reaction time normalized) (Most not yet safe at 6 weeks; normalized by 12 weeks (single n=26 study))
sources
What this page is built from
- Postoperative weight-bearing restrictions and rehabilitation after PAO: systematic review (63 studies) meta-analysis · reliability 9/10
- Rehabilitation guidelines following PAO: North American Delphi consensus (Disantis et al., IJSPT 2022) society guideline · reliability 9/10
- Patient-reported outcomes of PAO: prospective ANCHOR cohort (Clohisy et al., JBJS 2017, n=391) prospective cohort · reliability 9/10
- Pain reduction up to two years after PAO, rest vs activity (Jakobsen et al., Aarhus, pain cohort n=299) prospective cohort · reliability 8/10
- Daily postoperative pain and opioid use after PAO via automated mobile messaging (Bryan et al. 2020, n=29) prospective cohort · reliability 8/10
- PAO activity levels and return to sport: systematic review (J Hip Preserv Surg 2024) meta-analysis · reliability 8/10
- Anticipating time taken off work after Bernese PAO (2025, n=242) prospective cohort · reliability 8/10
Track your own week-by-week so a flare doesn't erase the months behind it.
Start a recovery logThis is a typical, evidence-anchored reading of pao recovery at week 7 — not medical advice, not a prediction for your body, and not a substitute for your surgeon or clinician.