Your hip pain symptoms may be caused by a variety of reasons.  It is vital to the successful outcome of your chiropractic treatment, to find the underlying cause of your symptoms.

Your hip pain may as a result of an injury to any of the tissues of the hip, including muscles, nerves, joints, tendons, connective tissue or reduced blood supply.  The area or spread of symptoms may involve the whole hip or may only affect specific areas.  The symptoms may be constant or intermittent and may improve or worsen with motion.

Common symptoms of the hip may include: pain, decreased mobility or stiffness. The type of pain / symptoms may be described as burning, dull, sharp or throbbing.  These symptoms may range in intensity from mild to severe.  Frequently, symptoms perceived in the hip are actually referred from a problem in the pelvic region. 

Here is a selection of common injuries that have been diagnosed at this clinic.

Strain or ‘over-use’ injury is a common term to describe tissues that have been stressed beyond their functional capacity.  The muscles, tendons or ligaments attaching into the hip, may be strained or sprained due to their excessive use or deconditioning of the hip muscles, resulting in a muscle strain, tendonitis or ligament sprain.

The damaged tissue will take time to heal, but the healing process will happen much sooner and further similar injuries will be minimized, if the under-lying ‘cause’ of the injury is highlighted and addressed. 

Symptoms of acute pain and stiffness may be felt in the hip and into the groin or thigh, depending which tissues are damaged.

Bursitis of the hip is inflammation of the trochanteric bursa, which acts as a lubricating pad in the hip, to protect the tendons and muscles from chaffing or tearing.  A fall or trauma to the hip may damage the bursa, but altered bio-mechanics of the hip joint may also result in bursitis.

Myofascial Pain Syndrome comes from the words ‘myo’ which means muscle, and ‘fascia’ which is the connective tissue that covers all muscles and organs of the body.  You will have no doubt heard of a ‘knot’ in a muscle and most probably experienced some ‘tension’ in a muscle or group of muscles. 

Myofascial pain, often referred to as ‘trigger points’, are points of hyper-tension (knot) within a band of tense muscle fibres.  These trigger points can be either ‘active’ or ‘latent’, which indicates whether or not they refer pain to distal sites or not. 

Active trigger points in the muscles of the hip may refer into the pelvic region and vice versa, depending on where the trigger points are located.  When these active trigger points are further stressed by excessive use, sustained contraction, cold / hot weather, then they may refer symptoms to their predictable site.

Latent trigger points do not refer symptoms but do cause local pain.  These latent trigger points will evolve into active trigger points if left untreated and if the original stress continues.

A diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation is required to de-activate these trigger points which will alleviate the hip symptoms.

Osteoarthritis of the hip joint is a common finding in the elderly population.  ‘Wear and tear’ to this joint will erode the hyaline cartilage from the surface of the acetabulum and, after time, begin to erode the bone from the head of the femur (hip). 

This degenerative disease will be greatly accelerated if the bio-mechanics of the hip are altered from optimum function.  A muscle imbalance of the pelvic and thigh muscles may cause the hip joint to work in a less than perfect position eg. too far forward or too far back. 

The degenerated hip cartilage and bone may not be replaced, but the accelerated rate of degeneration could be reduced, if the under-lying ‘cause’ of the poor function is highlighted and addressed. 

It is absolutely paramount to your good health that the underlying causes of your hip symptoms are found and correct diagnosis is made.  Dr Doherty will use his wealth of experience to achieve this and to make the appropriate management plan for you.

Similar symptoms are not always as a result of similar causes.  The consultation and examination will differentiate between the many causes that may be producing your hip symptoms.