Hip Health – it’s a JOINT effort

Why is keeping your hips healthy and pain free important to your quality of life?  Because your hips are involved in just about every move you make, including walking, sitting, bending, even sleeping! Your hips are the main weight bearing joint that transfers weight from your spine into your pelvis and down to your legs.  This is why, when you have hip pain, your quality of life is severely impacted.

 

Chiropractic treatment has been proven to assist in alleviating hip pain, including, but not limited to, hip pain due to: 

 

-Osteoarthritis

-Sports injuries

-Work Place Injuries

-Inflamation

-Car Accidents 

-Trauma

-Misuse

-Overuse

-Sciatica

 

Sciatica Pain:

Chiropractic treatment can also assist in stopping sciatica pain caused by disc herniations and/or, piriformis syndrome. The radiating pain in the buttocks, hips, low back and legs associated with sciatica can be crippling for those suffering from this.  Chiropractic manipulation can help ease the strain of the nerve interference and help restore motion in the legs and hip joints.  Massage, Trigger-point therapy, and myofascial release are all techniques a chiropractor can utilize to maintain or restore normal hip functions. 

 

Osteoarthritis:

As we age, hip degeneration can progress.  Failing to address this degeneration can lead to the requirement for hip replacement surgery.  Chiropractic care can assist in slowing this degeneration and delay or eliminate the need for a hip replacement.  Osteoarthritis is one of the most frequently occurring hip pain in older individuals.  Due to the wear and tear on the cartilage that protects the bones in the joints around the hip that slowly erodes until the underlying bone is exposed. This  results in hip pain that can be excruciating when the joint moves and bears weight.

 

Sports Injuries: 

However, hip pain does not just hit the elderly. Every age is vulnerable to hip pain.  From professional athletes to high school football players, hip pain does not discriminate between old and young, rich or poor.  Athletes of all ages are finding that hip injuries are increasing in numbers as sports get more and more competitive at younger ages.  Some common types of sports medicine related hip injuries among athletes if ALL ages are as follows:

1.  Bursitis – Most common in contact sports such as football and ice hockey, inflammation of the bursa between the muscle and the hip bone can cause causes pain at the hip point known as Bursitis. 

2.  Tendinitis – Most frequently found in endurance athletes such as long-distance runners, tendons that surround the hip joint case pain in the knee and the hip.   

3. Stress fractures – usually caused from repetitive use or overuse.

4. Hip impingements – abnormally shaped hip bones that rub against each other causing joint damage. 

5. Hip labral tears – caused when the bumper around the socket of the hip is injured.   

6. Hip pointer injuries – caused by impact pt  hip bone (iliac crest). The bone and overlying muscle are often bruised, and the pain can be intense.

7. Avascular necrosis – occurs when bone dies due to lack of blood flow. 

 

Therapies such as trigger-point therapy, massage therapy, or myofascial release may be just the treatment needed to keep your hips healthy and pain free! Contact your chiropractor in El Cajon to learn more about what treatments are right for you.