Why Does My Hip Hurt?

The pain you feel in your hip could come from any part of the joint, or the cause of your pain may not even be in your hip. You can experience hip pain as a result of conditions in other parts of your body.

Apex Pain Specialists specializes in getting to the source of your pain. They accurately diagnose the problem and create a customized treatment plan that eases your hip pain and gets you back to the activities you enjoy — no matter where the problem lies.

Referred hip pain

Referred hip pain occurs when the condition causing your discomfort originates elsewhere in your body. This is a common problem that occurs as a result of conditions that cause low back pain, including:

• Herniated or bulging disc
• Sciatica (pinched sciatic nerve)
• Sprained facet joint
• Degenerative disc disease

You may also experience referred hip pain if you injure your core muscles or have a problem in the sacroiliac joint (the joint connecting hip bones to the lower spine). You can even feel pain in your hip because of pelvic organ disease.

Problems in the hip joint

Four of the most common causes of hip pain include:

Osteoarthritis

After your knees, your hips are the most common site of osteoarthritis. Years of carrying your body weight combined with the stress of repeated hip movements makes cartilage inside the joint break down. Eventually, bone rubs against bone, inflammation and bone spurs develop, and you experience progressive hip pain.

Hip strains and sprains

Hip strains occur when the muscles and tendons are pulled beyond their limit, while sprains refer to stretched ligaments. Strains and sprains can be severe enough to tear the affected tissue. Though anyone can develop a hip strain or sprain from daily activities, these problems usually occur during sports injuries.

Bursitis

Bursa are small, fluid-filled sacs between the bones and soft tissues. The sacs create a cushion that reduces friction when you move your hip. If a bursa becomes inflamed, you have bursitis. The pain from bursitis may radiate into your upper thigh.

Labral tear

The labrum is a ring of cartilage that goes around the joint, helping to secure your upper leg bone in the joint. The cartilage frequently becomes torn as a result of an acute sports or gradual overuse injury. Labral tears may also cause groin pain.

Treating hip pain

Your treatment begins with limiting activities that stress the hip joint, taking anti-inflammatory medications, getting steroid injections, and engaging in physical therapy. Many hip problems heal with these conservative steps, but if your pain persists, you need the options available through interventional treatments.

Interventional procedures uniquely target the nerves sending pain messages from your hip to your brain. Using real-time imaging such as ultrasound and fluoroscopy (a special X-ray technique), we can deliver treatments to one or more precisely targeted nerves.

Our treatments target any problem causing hip pain, whether the source originates in your hip, lower back, or pelvic area. Here are three examples:

Nerve block

When performing a nerve block, we first locate the sensory nerves carrying pain signals, whether in your hip or spine. Then we inject a local anesthetic at the nerve, stopping the pain signals and easing your pain. We may also inject anti-inflammatory medications at the same time.

Radiofrequency ablation

After a nerve block positively verifies the specific nerve responsible for your pain, you can get long-lasting relief with radiofrequency ablation. We guide a needle-like device to the nerve and send out a brief burst of radiofrequency energy.

The energy wounds the targeted nerve, and the wound blocks pain signals. Radiofrequency ablation typically relieves your pain for six to nine months or longer.

Spinal cord stimulation

Spinal cord stimulation targets the pain-carrying nerves as they go through the spinal cord, allowing us to relieve pain from any part of your hip, back, and pelvic region.

We implant a device that sends mild electrical pulses into a specific group of spinal nerves. The pulses block the pain messages from traveling to your brain, providing pain relief as long as you have the implant.

If you need expert care for ongoing hip pain, call Apex Pain Specialists, or book an appointment online today.