What is hip pain?
Hip pain is the pain that you feel in one or both of your hips. While you feel it in your hip, the origin might be somewhere along your spine. Otherwise, many structures within your hip are prone to injury or degeneration.
Your hips are ball-and-socket joints. The heads of your femurs, or upper leg bones, are round and sit in the sockets of your pelvis, called the acetabulums. Within these joints, there are muscles, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage that work together to allow your hips to move smoothly. Damage to any of these structures can cause hip pain.
What are some common causes of hip pain?
There is an extensive list of possible causes of hip pain. If your hip pain doesn’t go away with home care like rest, ice, and over-the-counter pain relievers, the team at Athens Spine Center can conduct imaging tests like X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to view the structures in your hips and find the source of the pain. Common causes include:
- Arthritis
- Bone fracture
- Ligament sprain
- Muscle strain
- Tendinitis
- Bursitis
- Sciatica
Even without imaging procedures, the team at Athens Spine Center can tell a lot about your hip pain by other symptoms that accompany it. For example, hip pain from sciatica typically radiates from your lower back through your buttock and down your leg.
How can I manage my hip pain?
Once the team at Athens Spine Center diagnoses the cause of your hip pain, they can form a personalized treatment strategy starting with conservative, nonsurgical measures. Depending on the reason and severity of your hip pain, your treatment plan might include:
Lumbar epidural steroid injection
If the pain in your hip originates in your lower back and radiates through your hip and leg, a lumbar epidural steroid injection can help ease the inflammation. Using an X-ray for guidance, the team injects a mixture of steroids and anesthesia into the epidural space around your spine.
Joint injections
The team injects a mixture of steroids and anesthesia to the joint in your hip to relieve pain and inflammation.
Medial branch block
Your medial branch nerves attach to the facet joints in your spine. The team injects numbing medication onto your medial branch nerves to find the source of your hip pain and provide short-term pain relief.
Physical therapy
The team might refer you to a physical therapist to help strengthen your hip and restore its full mobility.
To find out what’s causing your hip pain and how you can treat it, call Athens Spine Center at (706) 425-2400 today.