Diagnosing The Source Of The Pain

The first step to correctly treating the pain is to receive an accurate diagnosis. Dr. Vyas explains, When I see a patient seeking treatment for suspected hip pain, the first thing I do is conduct a physical exam and take a history. A history of the pain will include asking questions such as:

• Where is the pain located?
• When does the pain occur? With activity? At rest?
• What type of pain is occurring? Is it sharp? Is it achy, etc.?

After the initial appointment, your doctor may request an x-ray in order to take a closer look at the bones. Based on the physical exam, x-ray, and possibly an MRI your doctor should be able to make an accurate diagnosis and suggest an individualized treatment plan.

When The Spine Is The Likely Culprit

Most lower spine problems are caused by a herniated disk that presses on nerves in the spinal column. This produces the pain known as sciatica, which can be felt in the hip. You may have a herniated disk if pain:

• Is limited to your back, buttocks or hip.
• Shoots down your leg.
• Worsens with sitting or bending.
• Improves when standing or walking.

If you have night sweats, ahistory of cancer, or pain that is not relieved by lying down ,see your doctor the problem may be more serious.

Some people develop whatDr. DeMicco calls a double whammy problems in both the hip and lower back.Its not surprising, since both osteoarthritis and spinal changes are morecommon with each passing decade, he explains.

What Treatments Are Available

Nonsurgical treatments: Physical therapy, chiropractic manipulation, and stretching exercises help many patients. Some patients may require oral anti-inflammatory medications or topical patches, creams, salves or mechanical bracing.

Joint injections: Steroids can reduce the swelling and inflammation of the nerves. Joint injections are a minimally invasive procedure that involves an injection of a corticosteroid and an analgesic-numbing agent into the painful joint . While the results tend to be temporary, if the injections are helpful they can be repeated up to three times a year.

Nerve ablations: Injections into joints or nerves are sometimes called âblocks.â Successful SI joint injections may indicate that you could benefit from radiofrequency ablation ââ¬â a procedure that uses an electrical current to destroy the nerve fibers carrying pain signals in the joint.

Surgery: If nonsurgical treatments and joint injections do not provide pain relief, your physician may recommend minimally invasive SI joint fusion surgery. Through a small incision, the surgeon places titanium implants and bone graft material to stabilize the joint and promote bone growth. The surgery takes about an hour. The patient may go home the same day or following day. For several weeks after surgery, the patient cannot bear full weight on the operated side and must use crutches for support.

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Is It Hip Pain Or Back Pain Lets Locate The Pain

Shooting pain in the lower part of your body can be a little hard to trace. Its because the pain can either be coming from the hips or the lower back. Either way, you can take Advil for back pain and hip pain relief. But if you want to correct and fix the problem, your physician must identify where the pain is coming from.

This blog will trace the root of your painthe hip or back?

Signs That Your Hip Is The Source Of Your Pain

One of the biggest signs that your pain is caused by a problem in your hip is the presence of groin pain. Your hip joint is located behind the groin, thats why groin pain usually means the hip is the root cause of pain. In some cases, this groin pain will radiate downward toward your knee.

Another obvious sign that your hip is the source of your pain is pain around or over the hip joint. However, hip problems can also refer pain to your low back, contributing to the confusion over where the true source of the pain is located.

Hip-related pain is most often caused by osteoarthritis in the hip. In addition to groin pain, people who have osteoarthritis in their hip joint often report pain in their buttock, front of thighs, and knees. They may also limp when they walk and report reduced range of motion in their hips, pain that worsens with activity and improves with rest, and discomfort that begins as occasional but becomes more regular.

While osteoarthritis is the most common cause, hip pain may also derive from piriformis syndrome, avascular necrosis in the hip, and/or sacroiliac joint dysfunction.

• Piriformis syndrome causes dull, mild pain in the low back and buttocks and can cause pain radiating down the legor sciatica.

• On the other hand, the hip pain associated with avascular necrosis is severe and constant.

• might be attributed to both the hip and the low back, as the sacroiliac joints connect the sacrum in spine to the hip bones.

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The Diagnosis: Is It Your Hip

When you tell your doctor your hip hurts, the first thing she should do is confirm that your hip is actually the problem. Women might say they have hip pain, but what they may mean is that they have pain in the side of the upper thigh or upper buttock, or they may be experiencing lower back pain, says Stephanie E. Siegrist, MD, an orthopedic surgeon in Rochester, New York, and a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Hip pain is often felt in the groin or on the outside of the hip directly over where the hip joint is located.

How Can The Low Back Cause Hip Or Knee Pain

Muscles in the hip and low backThe low back or lumbar spine houses the nerves that supply the legs. Problems in the low back can cause pain to radiate to the hip and knee regions. The pain may vary depending upon the position of the low back.

If there is lower back pain, the muscles around the spine may have spasms. Muscle spasms in the low back can cause the pelvis to elevate on one side. When the pelvis is not level, it changes the direction of the force on other parts of the body. This can lead to abnormal stress on the hip and/or knee.

Weakness in the core muscles of the abdomen and lower back can cause excessive movement in the spine with walking or daily activity. Overtime, this can translate to extra stress on the hip and knee which can eventually result in pain in the hip and knee.

If you would like to learn more about the Anatomy of the Spine, this VIDEO may help.

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Signs That Your Spine Is The Source Of Your Pain

Whereas groin pain is a telltale sign that the pain is linked to the hip, pain above the waistline that travels down the body typically indicates a low back issue. A low back problem may also be responsible for other types of lower body pain, including thigh, buttock, and below-the-knee pain.

Among the most common degenerative conditions that affect the lumbar spine are herniated discs, spinal stenosis, and spondylolisthesis. These conditions cause pain by irritating your low back nerves, resulting in pain that shoots down your legs , weakness, numbness, and reducing your range of motion.

The pattern of pain coming from the lumbar spine can be variable, depending of the specific issue causing the pain. Commonly, pain from arthritis of the spine occurs during transitions such as getting out of bed in the morning or raising up from sitting. It can often then improve after getting moving. In contrast, pain from spinal stenosis or nerve pressure is often worse with prolonged standing or walking and relieved with sitting.

How Your Back Works

The spine, which is also called the backbone or spinal column, is one of the strongest parts of the body and gives us a great deal of flexibility and strength.

Its made up of 24 bones, known as vertebrae, one sitting on top of the other. These bones have discs in between and lots of strong ligaments and muscles around them for support. There are also the bones in the tailbone at the bottom of the back, which are fused together and have no discs in between.

On either side of the spine, running from top to bottom, are many small joints called the facet joints.

The spinal cord passes inside the vertebrae, which protect it.

The spinal cord connects to the brain through the base of the skull and to the rest of the body by nerves that pass through spaces between the bones of the spine. These nerves are also known as nerve roots.

As you grow older, the structures of your spine, such as the joints, discs and ligaments, age as well. The structures remain strong but its usual for your back to get stiffer as you get older.

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For Your Convenience We’ve Divided These Causes Into Five Categories As Follows

• Low risk: This can be easily managed with over-the-counter medications or by avoiding the movement/stressor causing your pain.
• Low-medium risk: Usually managed as an outpatient by your doctor with prescription medication.
• Medium risk: May require a visit to your doctor or hospitalization. Prescription medication may be necessary.
• Medium-high risk: Hospitalization or urgent intervention. Although not life-threatening get help immediately of some kind.
• High risk: Serious and potentially lethal complications possible emergent intervention needed Intensive Care Unit care often needed.

Tests Reveal Advanced Arthritis Or Significant Joint Damage

Your hip is a ball-and-socket joint. Cartilage and synovial fluid reduce the friction caused where the socket in the pelvic bone and the ball of the femoral head move together. Significant joint damage caused by arthritis or other joint conditions can create inflammation, causing the cartilage to wear away. Without cartilage, theres no cushion between the bones rubbing together, and they begin to wear down. Advanced cases of joint damage may make surgery necessary.

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What Causes Hip Pain

Hip pain can be caused by several things, including injury, arthritis, and just being old. Injuries to the hip can include falls onto the hip, torn muscles near the hip, or even twisting or pulling on the knee joint. Arthritis can also cause hip pain. The cartilage that covers the ends of the bones in the hips can become inflamed and cause pain. Hip pain is also common in older people because moving around the joint becomes more difficult as the cartilage wears away.

Luckily, there are many things you can do to ease hip pain. First, make sure you get medical attention if your pain doesnt go away after trying self-treatment. Second, try to keep your weight off your hip. This means avoiding obesity and choosing healthy foods that dont put extra stress on your hips. Third, exercise regularly to maintain muscle strength around the hip joint and help reduce inflammation and pain. Finally, talk to your doctor about other treatments that might be effective for your specific case of hip pain.

Are My Hip Pain And Back Pain Related

People who suffer from both hip pain and back pain can experience lower back pain, groin pain, thigh pain, pain in the buttocks, and sometimes knee pain. The term hip-spine syndrome was coined to describe individuals who suffer from pain in these areas. However, because the pain can vary in location, diagnosing the source of the pain is sometimes more difficult.

If you suffer from both hip and back pain a visit to your doctor or a specialist can help determine the cause of your pain. After a complete physical and review of your medical history, a doctor may use advanced imaging techniques to assist them in their diagnosis.

Diagnosis may show that your hip and back pain are related. The pain can be the result of something going on in your hip, spine, or both. In this article well look at a few of the more common conditions of the spine which can lead to both hip pain and back pain.

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Mononeuropathies Of The Leg

Mononeuropathies can affect nerves in the legs, arms, or other parts of the body. Mononeuropathy means a single nerve or nerve group has been damaged, for example, by a lesion that has developed along a nerve or group of nerves. Carpal tunnel syndrome is a good example of a mononeuropathy, in this case, affecting the wrist area. With mononeuropathy symptoms may be sudden or may develop slowly . Some of the more common mononeuropathies are

• femoral neuropathy
• sciatic nerve dysfunction
• peroneal neuropathy .
• tibial neuropathy .

Symptoms of the neuropathies above would include burning sensation in leg areas where these nerves are housed as well as lack of coordination of these leg muscles. Other symptoms include muscle wasting, pain, and twitching, cramps, and spasms in these nerves. Treatment focuses on isolating the underlying cause of the nerve disorder and addressing it using medications such as injected glucocorticoids and/or physical

What Does Spinal Stenosis

For some patients, spinal stenosis-related hip pain is mild and occasional. For others, the pain is severe and increases gradually over an extended period of time. It is also possible for the hip pain to extend through the buttocks and the groin or radiate down through the legs.

Generally, spinal stenosis-related hip pain only affects one side of the body. It typically occurs when the space inside the spinal canal and between vertebrae narrows and compresses a nerve root in the lower spine. Nerve roots are structures that branch off the spinal cord on the left and right sides of the spinal column and travel out to provide motor and sensory function to the rest of the body. The pain caused by nerve root compression is often limited to the side of the body served by the nerve root being compressed.

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Is Your Hip Really The Culprit

We can often experience pain in the hips because this area of our body can take on too much workload to compensate for other surrounding joints and muscles that are unable to do their job properly. Similarly, when we experience hip pain we need to be sure that the pain we are experiencing is really our hip. Sometimes we can experience pain on the upper thigh , or the buttock , or lower back that we can often mistake for being our hip.

When we experience hip pain it is usually felt in the groin or directly where the hip bone and joint are located. There are a number of reasons that we can experience hip pain such as fractures, hernias, or long-term conditions like arthritis or tendonitis.

What Are Some Reasons That Back Pain Is Significantly Worse At Night Or In The Morning

Back pain is often perceived as one general term, but in my world back pain can mean a thousand different things. So your specific pathology will play a significant role in what time of day your pain is at its peak. I think the hormonal shifts that wakes us up in the morning and then makes us more tired by the end of the day contributes to inflammation.

If the pain is waking you up in the middle of the night, that is more of a red flag and should be assessed earlier.

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Select The Right Materials

Beyond the firmness, you should also take the time to select the right mattress materials to help with your hip pain as follows:

Memory Foam

Memory foam can be a good choice if you have hip pain because the highly adaptive nature of the materials means that you can sleep on a surface thats unique to your body shape for better posture and reduced pressure.

Latex Foam

Latex foam can also adapt to your body shape to potentially alleviate hip pain whilst also providing more bounce and breathability than memory foam which can benefit restless sleepers and warmer sleepers that need to stay cool and dry.

Innersprings

Mattresses with individually wrapped pocket coils in the support core can be especially beneficial for sleepers with hip pain because the coils can adapt one-by-one to provide better support and help maintain good posture more effectively than a regular spring mattress with a fused coil core that responds as a unit to your body weight.

What Is Sciatica

Sciatica refers to back pain caused by a problem with the sciatic nerve. This is a large nerve that runs from the lower back down the back of each leg. When something injures or puts pressure on the sciatic nerve, it can cause pain in the lower back that spreads to the hip, buttocks, and leg. Up to 90% of people recover from sciatica without surgery.

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How We Can Help

Back pain is one of the most common reasons for doctor and emergency room visits in the U.S. Its a leading cause of lost workdays and long-term disability. Not seeking medical attention and allowing the pain to persist will only cause the condition to worsen.

Atlantic Spine Specialists are board-certified and specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of back pain. We are dedicated to relieving and restoring function to help our patients have the best quality of life. No matter what the cause of your pain, receiving an extensive spinal examination and accurate diagnosis are the first steps to resolving the issue. At Atlantic Spine Specialists our doctors will prescribe the best treatment plan for you.

To learn more about diagnosis and treatment,request a consultation at Atlantic Spine Specialists in Morristown, New Jersey. Or call us at 971-3500 to schedule your appointment.