Hip pains tend to be one of the most common issues that are turning out to be an epidemic in current times. Constricting your movements to snatching out your ease and comfort – hip joints can turn your daily life upside down. Being the largest of all the body joints, it consists of a ball and socket joint responsible to connect the pelvis with the femur. Let us look into some of the most common reasons that are causing so many people to suffer from the condition and seek professional help to deal with it.
Main causes of hip pain
The design of the hip joint ensures fluid movement, thus allowing the individual to sustain repeated motions, strains, and wear and tear of the muscles. Some examples include making a run for a bus or jumping on to board it. But it is then when the muscles and the soft tissues in the region including the tendons and ligaments suffer the stress from the repetition of movements, especially with rising age that hip pains start taking the toll. There can be a lot of factors that bring in hip pain in individuals. Some of them may be common among the patients while some can be exclusive to a particular case. Some of the common reasons of hip pain include:
1. Arthritis
Arthritis is known to be the most common reason for people suffering from hip pain. It is medical condition that comes with age in most cases. Elders tend to suffer from arthritis when there is degeneration in their hip region. The more severe the degeneration is the more severe is the pain. It is of prime importance to intervene early and treat the pain arising due to arthritis in the hip to prevent too much damage. Arthritis can be of multiple types such as inflammatory, non-inflammatory, infectious and so on.
2. Capsulitis
This is caused mainly when the sac that surrounds the hip joints suffers inflammation or gets tight. The movement range of the hips gets constricted due tightness of the sac. If steps are not taken to stretch the capsule and releasing it the buttock region can get affected by attacks of chronic pain. Trauma can even induce the founding reasons for capsulitis.
3. Strain on the groin
Straining any muscle of the groin can severely affect the stability of the individual’s hip joints. When the joint becomes unstable, it can bring out extreme strains to the inner sides of the joint. This induces the pain. The individuals suffer from hip pain alone if the tear or strain on the muscle of the groin is deep enough. In other cases, patients tend to suffer from groin pain as well.
4. Lower Back
The region of the lower back is supplied with a huge number of nerves that can cause pains in the hip. This may be something has caused the nerves to get damaged or impinged by any means. It may be one of the most confusing questions that how the lower back can affect hip pains, but it really does. The pain may have its roots in that region. In many cases, hip pain may just get cured without any treatment of the hip region but treating the lower back to allow a faster recovery.
5. Other medical conditions
Some of the other conditions that can lead to hip pains include fracture or sprain that may directly or indirectly affect the area, avascular necrosis and hematoma. Apart from these, Gaucher’s disease, iliotibial band syndrome, sciatica and muscle strains can also induce the sufferings from hip pains.
It is based on the reason of the pain that it can be temporary, permanent or chronic.
Symptoms of hip pain
As discussed, there can be a lot of factors that may result in pain in the hips. It is dependent on the cause that the pain may be more violent while walking, running or getting engaged in any other activity. Some of the most common symptoms of hip pain include:
- Swells in the hip region
- Stagnation of the hip due to loss of motion
- Pain in the joints or groin region
- Difficulty to take rest while lying on the hip
- Limping
- Warmth
- The hip becoming more tender
Diagnosis of the pain
Experts of health care can use a variety of techniques to diagnose the pain. They can look on the patient history or conduct some physical tests. Some of the skilled practices of physical examination includes rotating the hip – either internally or externally or both and this can be quite useful to short down to the positions aggravating the pain. Palpating the inflamed areas can elicit tenderness. Signs of sciatica can be detected from raising the leg in a straight way.
Today’s innovation has helped medical practitioners to use various imaging techniques to develop a clearer insight on the reason of the pain. Some of the imaging techniques used for the detection of hip pain includes:
- X-Rays
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
- CT Scans
- Bone scans using nuclear medicine – especially in cases of determining fractures or inflammation of the bones.
The choice of treatment widely varies based on the precise reason of the pain. Some the most commonly used treatment procedures include medications with anti-inflammatory properties, non-weight bearing, bed rest and cold application among many others. Injections of steroid medication (cortisone) are often used for cases of local inflammation if the pain is too unbearable. For the cases of hip pains caused due to infections, antibiotics can be a great option to deal the issue.
For the cases of fractures, treatment may ask for surgical interventions such as repairs and include screws, pins and plates. Another way to get rid of hip pain is replacing the total joint. It is one of the treatments used for patients suffering from cases of severe arthritis. Drugs from over the counter of your local pharmacy can be used for damages for muscles, tendons and ligaments to reduce swelling and pain. Exercise and mild stretching can contribute to developing the mobility of the joints.
If there is no improvement after being on pain killer medication for over a week, it is best to get in touch with a professional practitioner.
Tips to get relief from hip pain
Apart from the medication and doctor provided treatments, below mentioned are a few tips that can help in the regulation of hip pains:
- Losing weight can be a great option. It reduces the pressure exerted on the hip region.
- Standing too long can initiate hip pains even if you are not presently suffering from any condition.
- Wearing flat shoes confirms equal pressure distribution during regular activities and repeated movement. This can prevent the effects of hip pain in the long run.
- Keep yourself physically active by participating in exercises with low pressure impacts such as swimming.
- It is advised to go for warm up sessions before starting any workout session. Once you have finished exercising, do not forget to stretch yourself out.
- Prefer to consult a professional healthcare provided in cases of falls and other injuries.
You can search up the web to know more about the specific causes of hip pain. Once you do your own research, you can find a lot more that can initiate the mentioned causes to impact your health. You can even know how the causes can bring in more side effects and cause to collapse if you fail to take necessary steps to beat the pain. With some of the most common ways of treatment that are being used across the globe, it is one of the leading reasons that individuals visit doctors on date.
Care must be taken right from the start so that you can prevent yourself from catching the pain and stay fit in the long run. Strengthening yourself and the hip region can be considered to be one of the best ways to prevent hip pain. It is thus advisable to exercise and stretch out on a regular basis to stay fit in the long run.