You’ve developed pain on the outside of your hips that flares when you’re active and bothers you at night when you sleep or when you’re sitting for long periods. This type of discomfort is the hallmark of hip bursitis, a common condition affecting up to 15% of women and 8% of men.
As musculoskeletal experts, board-certified orthopedic surgeon Dr. Marc Pietropaoli and the team here at Victory Sports Medicine & Orthopedics have considerable experience helping our patients overcome hip bursitis. In most cases, finding relief is a concerted effort between our treatments and some things you can do independently. Let’s take a look.
Before we get into how you can find relief from your hip bursitis, we find it helpful to review the condition, so you have a better understanding of the problem.
Your hips contain two pairs of bursae sacs, which are designed to prevent friction between your bones. The ones typically involved in hip bursitis are located toward the outside of your hip, and they cover your greater trochanters, which are the bony points of your hips.
When you have bursitis, it indicates inflammation in the sacs, which can lead to discomfort. In the case of hip bursitis, this discomfort typically presents as pain outside of our hip(s). Because of its location, the area may be tender to the touch, and you can experience pain when working your hips and when you’re sleeping or sitting for long periods.
In most cases, hip bursitis can be resolved using nonsurgical treatments. Typically, we like to start conservatively and recommend the following:
If these conservative measures fail to produce results, we can give you a joint injection that contains a corticosteroid to reduce the inflammation. We can also administer platelet-rich plasma injections to help reduce inflammation and encourage healing.
There are many ways in which you can tweak your lifestyle to help heal your hip bursitis. For example, if you suspect you developed the problem because of concussive activities, such as running, you’ll need to give this activity a rest for a little while. Instead, you can try cycling or other activities that don’t “pound” your hips.
You spread the workload by recruiting muscles to help support and move your hips more evenly. It’s also terribly important to beef up the muscles around your hips to take the pressure off the bursae sacs. To get started, here are some great hip-strengthening exercises.
If you’re dealing with pain at night, you’ll need to change your sleeping position — instead of sleeping on your side, try sleeping on your back.
Avoiding being in one position for too long is also a good idea. If you spend the day seated at a desk, get up and move around periodically to reduce inflammation.
Hip bursitis is also more common among people who are carrying extra weight. If this includes you, a little weight loss can go a long way toward taking the pressure off the bursae sacs in your hips.
For a more personalized plan for your hip bursitis, please call our office in Skaneateles, New York, at 315-303-8352, or book an appointment with us online.
