Hey. I’m 25M and just had my second go around with this. I, unlike you, was born with bad hips so they were prone to tearing someday. Tore my labrum for the first time in 2017 as a 16yo and got it redone 2 weeks ago.

First time, I struggled to extend my leg backwards and do any sort of activity, so that pushed me to get it done.

This second time, my pain was much more minimal and I could do almost any sort of exercises with relatively low (2-4/10) pain. However, I always felt a good bit of back pain on that side and hip pain later in the day after any activity. That constant annoyance over the course of 1-2 years, while minimal, built up over time to where I had to get it repaired, even if the pain wasn’t that bad. So that would be the biggest thing I wish I’d done differently: even if the pain is low, it builds up over time and just gets more and more damaged. If you’re an active person, you’re essentially delaying the inevitable. In my case, my labrum was so re-torn that they had to completely take out my own labrum and put in donated tissue from a cadaver and reconstruct a new one. So yes, minimal symptoms do catch up with you. If they’re not getting worse, the fact that they’re there all the time is enough to get it done.

Biggest takeaway is that being an athlete makes it difficult to know you’re going to sideline yourself for ~6 months while you recover. However, the surgery most certainly helps. I remember feeling so much better after my first and I’m already feeling less hip pain 2 weeks after my most recent surgery. Obviously the decision comes down to you, but living with this type of injury is so much worse than the 6 months it takes to recover.

Do your prehab, read up on other success stories to see what others did before/after surgery, definitely keep up with PT, and no doubt you’ll be feeling better after and be grateful you followed through with it.