The curious case of a 75-year-long dislocated hip causing abdominal pain

We present a case of abdominal pain due to chronic hip dislocation of 75 years duration. Hip dislocations are not uncommon, but long-term, unreduced dislocations are vanishingly rare in the developed world. This 80-year-old female, who emigrated to the United States as an adult, presented to the emergency department for acute abdominal pain. Workup showed no intra-abdominal cause for her pain. History revealed she had suffered a traumatic hip dislocation at 5 years of age that was unable to receive adequate treatment because of limited health care access. After several years, she regained functional ability because of anatomic and compensatory musculoskeletal changes in the pelvis. The adaptations likely caused excessive muscular strain resulting in muscle spasm at the location of her abdominal pain. To our knowledge, this is the only reported case of a hip that remained dislocated for 75 years.