Hip Pain

Finally Get Hip Pain Relief With Hip Adjustments & PEMF Therapy

hip pain

Hip pain can be caused by an injury or a disease process that results from smaller traumas sustained over time. Hip injuries can occur from a sudden contact or force, or can become damaged over time from overuse or repetitive loads. The muscles surrounding the hip also can become tight, tense, or shortened due to long periods of sitting. Since most people have jobs that require they sit for most of the day, it's often only a matter of time before low back pain and hip pain become a part of their lives. 

A repetitive load on the hips, such as running and jumping can create "wear and tear" damage. Runners, football players, and basketball players (or former participants in these sports) may find that their hips have sustained some repetitive damage. Often, it's a lack of attention to the muscles that support the hip that can lead to the limited range of motion and eventual pain in the hip.

Diagnosing Hip Pain

This article is about hip pain, that is pain that is in the joint where the long bone of the thigh (femur) attaches to the pelvis at the acetabulum (hip socket). However, often when a patient complains of "hip pain" they will actually point to their SI joint (pain just below the belt line in the lower back). We can help with that too, click here for more information about that area.

For pain that's actually in the hip joint, it may be a constant throbbing but it occurs more often with specific movements. Since the hip is a ball and socket joint, it can move in a lot of directions. Knowing which action or movement causes the pain will help with diagnosis of the muscle or area of the joint involved. 

Services That Work Best For This Condition

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personalized chiropractic care

Chiropractic Care

x-rays

Spinal X-Rays

emfield heit therapy

HEIT Therapy

pemf therapy

PEMF Therapy

Common Muscle Groups To Stretch Or Strengthen For Hip Pain Relief

While we can adjust the hip with chiropractic adjustments to the hip joint and pelvis, working with the muscles is key to long-term relief. We provide our patients with either beginner hip exercises or advanced hip exercises, depending on their level of pain and ability to perform the movements. All of the exercises & stretches will focus on three main areas:

  • Hip flexors - The muscles at the front of the hip. When you're in a seated position, these muscles tend to stay short. Rarely do we find patients that even know how to stretch these muscles effectively. For some patients, they are so tight we have to start small and work on thigh (quadriceps) flexibility before we can even get to the hip flexors. We do find hip flexor weakness at times and will work on strengthening the area as well as stretching. 
  • Hip rotators - the muscles at the back of the hip. You have to stretch these muscles and patients have learned over the years to work on this area because of the sciatica that is frequently associated with these muscles being tight. A combination of stretching and mobility work (covered later in this article) will go a long way in helping you achieve hip pain relief. 
  • Glute muscles - the muscles that make up the buttocks that should be doing a lot more work than the hips in your daily activities. These muscles are generally weak and not activated in people that sit all day. Now referred to as "dead butt syndrome," the hip rotator muscles are overworked due to lack of glute muscle activation. With this area, we focus on exercises that will get the glute muscles to work instead of reliance on the hip rotators. Patients are often very surprised at the difference once they start working on it.

What Causes Hip Pain?

Trauma - A direct blow to the hip or a sudden twist can cause damage to ligaments, tendons, or the bone. When there's trauma associated with hip pain, the likelihood of tears in the muscles, ligaments, or tendons have to be considered before proceeding with any treatment plan. 

Daily activities - Small repetitive actions involving the hips or extended periods of sitting can lead to hip problems. Weakening of the muscles or tightening of the muscles is very often the beginning of chronic hip pain issues. 

Repetitive motions - The most common overuse injuries are usually sports related. The consistent bending and extending motions done in marathons and sports such as dance, soccer, or football create stress in the structures resulting in small tears and other damage.

Unbalanced pelvis - An unbalanced pelvis will occur due bad postures such as crossing the legs, sleeping with legs in awkward positions, falls to the low back, or anatomical/functional short legs. We do look for leg length discrepancy when dealing with any pelvis or lower extremity related problems. 

How Can We Help Hip Pain?

Chiropractic care can help hip pain through many different treatments and therapies that can help mobilize, stabilize, reduce inflammation, and increase joint space. Excluding complete tears of the ligaments or tendons, chiropractic care offers a safe and non-invasive way to decrease pain and help to stabilize an injured hip joint. Treatments used here at CORE include:

Chiropractic Adjustments - Chiropractic adjustments to the hip will mobilize a stiff hip joint directly. Manipulations to an unbalanced pelvis will help to distribute your weight evenly. This uneven weight distribution contributes to abnormal wearing of the hip joint. The hip adjustment is a simple distraction-style adjustment, where the hip joint is pulled downward. You don't typically hear a "pop" or "crack" but you can when the joint is finally freed up. 

PEMF Therapy - Pulsed Electromagnetic Field (PEMF) therapy can help to reduce pain and inflammation, while also accelerate tissue healing and strengthen bone. Patients that have been dealing with hip pain for years find that adding in PEMF therapy speeds up the healing process. The therapy can be applied to directly affect the bones of the hip joint or set up to focus on the muscles, ligaments, and tendons (soft tissue) of the surrounding area. 

Other therapies included in treatment of hip pain include a stretching/strengthening exercise protocol, kinesiotaping to help stabilize the joint, cryotherapy to reduce inflammation, electrical stimulation and a TENS unit to help reduce pain.

Don't continue to suffer with chronic hip pain. Get help and get back to the daily activities you love!

Let CORE Chiropractic help you get back on track with personalized chiropractic care, stretching & exercise recommendations, PEMF therapy and a custom treatment plan. Call today for your consultation, or schedule an appointment online.