Lateral Hip Pain
Do you have pain on the outside of your hip?
Pain on the outside of your hip (lateral hip pain) can be caused by a few different things.
Maybe it’s coming from your back? Maybe it’s from your hip joint? Could it be muscular? Or is it the gluteal tendons? Did someone say bursitis? Google doctor doesn’t do a great job of differentiating these things, since they all have something in common, pain on the outside of your hip! 🤦🏻♂️😬
Each of these diagnoses have really favourable outcomes, however they require very different management, so having an assessment and understanding what is causing your hip pain is crucial.
Questions that we may ask to help differentiate the possible causes of your hip pain are:
Does it feel better or worse with a walk?
Can you lay on your side comfortably?
Does the pain extend down your thigh at all?
What does the pain feel like? Is it deep or superficial, sharp or dull, aching, throbbing, or pinching?
If you need help navigating this, you can schedule a free phone consult with us online.
What can you do today to feel better?
Write down the things that make your pain worse. Is there a way to reduce or modify each of these aggravators to reduce how often your pain is provoked?
Move your spine and hips in a non-painful way. Whether the pain is coming from your spine, hip joint, or the soft tissues around your hip, they all like movement.
These are some basic exercises that generally don’t aggravate symptoms, but if it does, no need to push through. The aim is just to get things moving comfortably.
Bent knee fall out: Lay on your back with your knees bent so that your feet are flat. Slowly let both knees fall out to the side, as far as is comfortable. This should lengthen your inner thigh (adductor) muscles.
Pelvic tilt: Laying on your back, knees bent as above. Feel your tailbone on the floor/bed. Can you tip your pelvis so that the end of your tailbone closest to your heels presses into the ground? Now allow your pelvis to roll back to the starting position. Can you tip your pelvis so that the top of your tailbone, and lower back presses down into the ground? And relax back to centre. Continue with this, trying to do it without tensing or bracing with your abdominal or buttock muscles.
Bridge: As with the pelvic tilt, roll your tailbone so that your back flattens, then press through your feet to lift your tailbone, pressing your hips into the air and peeling your spine off the floor. Start to lower down by caving in through your sternum and laying each vertebrae back down. Relax at the bottom. This can be sore, but often improves after the first few. If it’s still sore by number 5, don’t continue it.
Wall sumo squat: stand facing a wall with hands on the wall at shoulder height, and feet wider than your hips. Keep your hands fixed as you begin to squat, bending your knees and sending your hips backwards as if sitting down. Keep weight through your hands and feet as you press back to standing.
These things are really just to get you started. Each of the different causes of lateral hip pain require different things. So, if you’ve got lateral hip pain, I highly recommend having an assessment with a physio, and coming up with a plan to get better.
If you need help with pain on the outside of your hip, give us a call, we’d love to help 🙂