Have you ever wondered why your hips hurt?
Do you think you need a hip replacement?
Have you paid attention to where the pain in your hip is located?
Is it in the meaty back part, at the outside, or on the bone/at the joint? Is it at the inside or outside of your thigh? Is is mid-thigh on the outside of your leg?
Are there times when your hip pain is worse or not noticeable?
Answering these questions will help you determine what's going on - why you have hip pain or discomfort - and how to get rid of it.
Having the answers to these questions will also help you explain your pain to your doctor in case you decide to talk to him or her about it.
Lately, people, including me, have been complaining about pain at the hip joint.
The hip joint is the bone that you can feel on the outside of your very upper leg. If you drop your hand down at your side, you will feel the bone somewhere around your lower arm or wrist, depending how long your arm is. What you are actually feeling is the head of your thigh bone.
Muscles and tough tissues cross over this joint.
Sometimes the bursa - a little pocket of lubrication for the joint - gets irritated. Your doctor may say you have bursitis. That can go away on its' own, especially if you stop doing whatever was irritating it.
Sometimes the muscles get aggravated. This can be from pressure, like laying on your favorite side in bed all the time. It can also be from an over-stretch, like crossing your leg.
The position that would most likely cause over-stretch is when you move your knee closer or past your midline. The midline is the imaginary line is the line that goes from your nose to belly button, straight down your body.
Lots of times people think they need a hip replacement. Often all they need is...
> Some really good therapeutic massage to release the muscles and tissues which have become tight around the joint. This includes the powerful gluteal, or butt, muscles. They attach to the hip joint and if they get tight, they will pull too much across the joint and cause discomfort.
> To stop aggravating the joint. This could mean learning to sleep on your back or other side. It might mean not letting your knee move toward or across your midline.
> Finding a new seat or car seat. Sometimes the outer edge of a seat will press against our hip bone, especially if we have wide bones. That can aggravate the muscles and cause hip pain.
> Getting their legs measured by a doctor, physical therapist or neuromuscular massage therapist who understands how to measure for leg length difference. One out of ten of us has a leg length difference. If we do, and if we get a correct lift for our short leg - get this - it takes the pressure off the hip of the short leg.
Sometimes there has been so much wear on a hip joint - usually from having a short leg - that the joint must be replaced.
Other times, just taking the pressure off the joint and getting some deep muscle massage will take the pain away!
Here are a couple of beneficial things we can do at home, easily, in the comfort of our bed.
> The first is to make the muscles around your hip joint move in multiple directions.
Most of the time, we only move in one or two directions. Moving in various directions will warm your muscles and make them more flexible.
> The second is to strengthen the muscles on the outside of the joint.
To do this, lift your leg to the side. Do this in a way that you can feel your hip muscle - your gluteal (butt) muscles - contract. You want to know that you are using those muscles. Those muscles should be involved in this movement.
If the cause of your discomfort was over-stretched muscles, strengthening in this way will help correct the problem. It will help get you back in balance.
Why do I say "back in balance?"
Because you used to be in balance, when you were a child.
And you can be again.
"Because You Deserve to Feel Better!"
