Your hip joints are amazing. They’re strong enough to bear your body weight while also allowing for surprising mobility.
Your hip joints are similar to your shoulder joints in that all four are ball-and-socket joints, but the sockets of your hip joints are deeper than the sockets of your shoulder joints, which gives them their strength.
Hip pain isn’t unusual, for several reasons. The experts at Orthocenter have helped patients who have hip pain due to strains as well as those who need hip replacements. Here, we discuss five of the common reasons you might feel hip pain.
As a society, we sit more than ever before, and when we sit, our hip flexors are shortened. Over time they become weak. A weakness in hips and glutes contributes to plenty of sports injuries.
Other types of injuries can result in hip pain as well. Dislocation, hip fracture, sprains, and bursitis are all examples of hip injuries that cause significant pain. Tendonitis, or inflamed tendons, is a very common cause of hip pain. It’s an overuse injury, and with proper care, it’s easily treatable.
There are more than 100 different types of arthritis, and as the largest joints in your body, your hips are at risk. Depending on the type of arthritis you have, it can cause pain due to wear-and-tear, an infection in your joint, or inflammation that damages your cartilage.
Although there’s no cure for arthritis, treatments can relieve your symptoms and slow the progression of the disease, and some lifestyle changes may help. Strengthening the tissues that surround your joints can ease your pain, so physical therapy could be an option.
A few different conditions involving nerves can cause hip pain. For example, meralgia paresthetica can cause a sensation of tingling, numbness, or burning on the outside of your thigh. It happens when a particular nerve gets compressed.
Another common nerve problem is sciatica, which occurs when your sciatic nerve is compressed. This large nerve starts in your lower back, divides in two and travels through your buttocks and down the back of your legs. The pain varies considerably from person to person, and sometimes causes pain in your hip.
Bone cancer can certainly cause severe hip pain. Bone cancer can affect any bone, and it often affects the pelvis. If you have another type of cancer that has metastasized, you may also have pain in your hip joints.
If you have osteoporosis, your bones are weak, brittle, and break more easily than healthy bones. Even simple things like bending over or coughing can create enough stress to break a bone.
Women are more prone to osteoporosis than men, and hip fractures are common among people who have the disease. Hip fractures as a result of osteoporosis have multiple potential complications, and may even raise your risk of death.
If you’re experiencing severe hip pain, the safest thing to do is schedule an appointment at Orthocenter for an evaluation. Understanding the cause of your pain is an important step in dealing with it!
We have three offices for your convenience, in Red Bank, Morganville, and Holmdel, New Jersey, and you can schedule an appointment at any of them with a simple phone call.
