Managing Hip Pain With A Kingsland Physio

Active lifestyles, ageing and chaotic schedules often lead to us putting off those niggling pains to our side. We push through, we take painkiller after painkiller and end up relying on soothing gels and sprays to help us get through our day. However, those pains we feel on our side could indicate a more severe issue and it can be lateral hip pain. At our Kingsland physio practise, we often see patients coming in complaining of a pain that just came out of nowhere.

Lateral hip pain can often be an indicator of gluteal tendinopathy or Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome. This is a condition caused by overloading of the Gluteus medius tendon due to poor stability around the pelvis region. It worsens as it goes unchecked and can be aggravated by sudden bursts of impact such as taking part in an annual charity marathon, boot camps or high intensity exercises. It can become even more problematic with everyday actions, such as sitting with crossed legs, taking the stairs, walking for long distances or even just lying on that side.

So the question arises – how do we help you manage your lateral hip pain? Well, we first need an accurate assessment of the damage to ensure we develop an appropriate treatment plan for recovery. These are some of the methods we may employ for your case.

Determine Painful Loads On Your Hip 

These are loads that make an impact on your hip area i.e. being on your feet. We take into consideration your current day-to-day physical exercise and current activity levels. From this information, we can assess which areas of your life need to be adjusted. For example, we may suggest you start introducing more recovery days between workouts or reducing the distance of your daily walks.

Remove Agonising Compression Loads 

Pressure and weight put on your hip also play a significant role in tissue repair. So we start advising you on daily movements to avoid to help ease the impact it has on your hip. We may recommend you adjust your ergonomics at work, change your routine, ask you to move every hour or so, not to sit cross-legged or lie on your side, to lighten the load on your hip.

Introduce Helpful Exercises To Repair Tissue 

We will work through a treatment plan dedicated to alleviating the pain completely or providing you with much-needed relief, as time progresses. We will require you to engage in strengthening and conditioning exercises to help you manage your pain in the area.

And even though pain can suddenly just pop up, it can be a build-up of bad posture and too much load through the leg with poor muscle strength that have resulted in your lateral hip pain. Therefore it is important to remember how these play a role in the way our body functions and absorbs impacts. We assume that our hips being slightly tight or tender is just another ache that will go away with time but the sooner you get this pain seen to, the better we can manage it to allow you to keep moving.

Book a consultation today with a Kingsland physio at Cairnhill Physiotherapy to help you manage your pain.