This is a different problem from the hip pain thread so I decided to start a new one. I am accustomed to walking 4 miles to me office, especially in the current weather. I guess this actually started a few years ago, but got much worse last fall. Now after I walk about 1/2 mile, my right hip starts to ache. When my doctor asked me to point to where it hurts, he immediately said it looked like bursitis. He sent me for PT. The therapist diagnosed it as a stiff muscle and she gave me treatments and exercises. They really had no effect. In fact a couple of the exercises caused back pain and I quit them.
It takes a half mile for the pain to start. If I can find a place to sit for 5 minutes, I can then go another half mile until it gets painful. Fortunately, the commuter train is about a half mile from my home and the downtown station is also about a half mile from my office, but I would sure like to take up walking again. Any thoughts?
How intimately familiar with the hip joint are you?
You may find yourself getting a crash course.
If you are over 50 and/or overweight, it could be wear/tear.
I know nothing about bursitis (and have all the “extra” medical knowledge I ever want), but if the first doc didn’t work and won’t try another diagnosis, find another doc.
You need a really basic diagnosis: is the pain from muscle or bone?
Until that is settled, no idea what all it could be.
When I was 17 and in boot camp in the Navy, I was diagnosed with bursitis when I was unable to lift my rifle above my head using both arms. (I was offered a choice and elected to stay in. I wanted to see the world and ride the WAVES.) I don’t remember any sharp pain, more like a dull ache and just literally being unable to perform the manuever.
I have been diagnosed with a form of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome in which the cartilage in my body is too flexible. For example, my ankles “turn” easily.
Here is a description of hip bursitis :
This is from this site. It has information on hip bursitis, including treatment options. A new procedure is arthroscopic removal of the outer bursa (Trochanteric bursa, the one on the point of the hip.)
I hope this has been helpful, and especially that things turn out well for you.
I was having similar issues. The PT discovered that I have one leg longer than the other. I now put something like a Doctor Scholls foot pad in the shoe of the short leg. It certainly helps. I also put shims under the cleat on my cycling shoes.
To answer some questions, it is more an ache than a pain. I cannot really tell if it is muscular or in the hip joint. I have seen my doctor, chirpracter, and physical therapist. I have an appointment at the beginning of September with a rheumatologist (earliest I could get an appointment). I already wear orthotics.
If you’re walking 8 miles a day you should use a trick my sister’s ortho told her when she tore her hip labrum* (but before they diagnosed it). When you go one way, return on the same side of the street. According to him, many people will go on a long run, but then come back on the opposite side of the road.
The problem is, sidewalks (like streets) are crowned to shed water. So if you go North for 4 miles your left leg (for example) is lower than your right leg. If you then cross to the other side of the street to come back, your left leg is still lower than your right leg. He suggest just turning around to sort of keep things even. Left leg lower half the time, right leg lower the other half the time. I suspect this isn’t really the case if you’re walking to and from work, but I thought I’d toss it out there. For this doc and my sister’s complaint, it was just one of the first things he tossed out there for her to try.
*torn/worn/frayed hip labrum…another thing to google. I have no idea if that’s what you have, but most people don’t know they have something called a labrum, so it might be something to check the symptoms of. Make sure you’re looking at hip labrums as shoulder labrum tears (with names like SLAP or Bankart) are much more common. Either way, it’s typically a surgery requiring injury and ultimately what my sister needed. Though she slipped on the ice to tear her’s. I’m assuming if you had a traumatic injury in the last year or so you would have mentioned it in the OP.
I actually walked through various city streets, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other and varied my route quite a bit, so that is unlikely to be an explanation. Then I took the commuter train home. But I will look up labrum. The ache is always in the same place and if that is not where the labrum is, that is not the explanation. My doctor says it is the bursa.
You really can’t rule something out that way. Pain gets referred all over the place, especially in tight areas like hips and shoulders. My pain was always right in the front (where your shoulder meets your chest), the tear was at the very back.
When my sister was trying to figure out what was going on with her hip, one of the tests they did was to numb her hip then have her run up and down stairs and do a bunch of other work…things that typically made it hurt, just to check for referred pain from somewhere else.
I was in that position with hip pain for years, and getting a good diagnosis was the next thing to impossible for me and any of the doctors I saw. Finally, I was sent for an MRI, and was told I needed a hip replacement. What with one thing and another (the MRI showed I also had a nasty pinched nerve in my back that was the cause of the awful leg pain on the other side; that had to be fixed first), by the time the hip was replaced, the orthopedist said there wasn’t 6 week’s wear left in it. Don’t wait that long, and keep after diagnosis until you get an answer. Suggest an MRI if the doc doesn’t; no one should have to suffer that long.
There could be any number of reasons your hip is hurting:
[ul]
[li]Hips out of alignment[/li][li]One leg shorter than the other[/li][li]Joint damage[/li][li]Muscle damage[/li][li]Foot problems[/li][li]Lower back problems[/li][li]Knee problems[/li][li]Torn cartilage[/li][li]etc…[/li][/ul]
As someone who has been having hip and foot pain for the past 10 years, all I can say is keep looking until you get an accurate diagnosis. That way you can get proper treatment and not feel like you are shooting in the dark at the problem.
It might prove expensive but I suggest getting a CT-mylogram. I had been having excruciating hip pain for years. X-rays showed nothing; MRI showed nothing. PT didn’t help. Finally, over two years later, I got a CT mylogram, which revealed significant arthritis in the facet joints at L3-L4 and L4-L5. Nothing is really going to help until you get an accurate diagnosis. Good luck!