You may have been told you have gluteal tendinitis, hip bursitis, femoral acetabular impingement, arthritis, or a pulled/strained muscle in the hip or groin.
If this is a new injury, the treatment plan looks like this:
Step 1.
Calm the area down by not doing the activities that increase the pain and begin therapeutic interventions like joint mobility, muscle work, and/or dry needling. Once it has calmed down, we move to the next step.
Step 2.
Make the area stronger and more resilient to injury. This can be done by increasing mobility at the hip joint and increasing strength in the muscles of the hip and groin.
If you have been dealing with hip pain for a while, often times we can bypass step 1 and move right on to step 2. Many times getting your hip better is not complicated, and we can forego more invasive avenues of treatment including injections and surgery.
Why does my hip hurt in the first place?
The hip is the joint that attaches your upper leg bone, the femur, into your pelvis. This joint allows us to move our leg forward and backward, side to side, and even rotate. If we lose the ability to move the joint backward behind us or turn the leg in and out, the mechanics of the hip will be compromised. For some, their daily activities may not cause any issues or pain in the hip. But when a sudden movement in a backward or sideways motion that they weren’t ready for occurs, a 5-alarm emergency sets off in the hip. Immediately, or over the course of a few days, pain in and around the hip joint can increase. Rest or stopping the activity that made it hurt in the first place may help, which is step 1 above. We know from research that if a body part has hurt in the past, there’s an 70-90% chance it will hurt again. If step 2 above isn’t addressed, your chances to re injure it are closer to that 80-90% range. We don’t want that for you!
Your hip pain will be addressed and assessed with the utmost attention. Many times patients leave feeling much better and within 4-6 visits are back to their full, unrestricted activities!