If you experience these for longer than 6 weeks, you may need to speak to a healthcare professional. Occasionally, problems felt in your hip can be due to a back problem - even though you don't feel pain in your back.
Osteoarthritis. This is a very common cause of a daily, dull pain in the hip. With osteoarthritis, your joints become stiff and swollen due to inflammation and breakdown of cartilage, causing pain and deformity.
Other red flags of concern with respect to the patient presenting with hip and/or groin pain include a history of trauma, fever, unexplained weight loss, burning with urination, night pain, and prolonged corticosteroid use.
This stage is also called moderate hip osteoarthritis. Stage 4 (the most severe stage): The cartilage is almost gone, which causes chronic inflammation. Pain and stiffness are felt almost all of the time.
Walking is one of the best ways to relieve hip pain. But, if you find that despite a daily walk you are still experiencing it, there are other options available to you as well. If you've had a hip injury, ongoing physical therapy can help you immensely.
It's also important to seek help right away if you experience swelling, redness, warmth, tenderness, or soreness in the area of your hip joint because these could be signs of more serious conditions. Septic arthritis, for example, is a joint infection that can lead to deformities or osteoarthritis if not treated.
Problems within the hip joint itself tend to result in pain on the inside of your hip or your groin. Hip pain on the outside of your hip, upper thigh or outer buttock is usually caused by problems with muscles, ligaments, tendons and other soft tissues that surround your hip joint.
Hip pain is common, especially as you get older. There are things you can do to ease the pain, but get medical help if your hip is very painful or the pain does not get better.
Over-the-counter pain relievers such as acetaminophen (Tylenol, others), ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others) and naproxen sodium (Aleve) may help ease your hip pain. Ice or heat. Use ice cubes or a bag of frozen vegetables wrapped in a towel to apply cold treatments to your hip.
Visit a healthcare provider if you're feeling hip pain that's bad enough to affect your daily routine or that's making it hard to move. See a provider if you're feeling pain that lasts more than a few days without getting better.
Myth: Young people don't have hip pain
Patients, between the ages of 30 and 50 often experience wear and tear at the hip joint. Patients ages 50 and older commonly deal with “bad hips” and have pain in the worn joints.
Hip pain often gets better on its own, and can be managed with rest and over-the-counter painkillers.
"Hip pain from sitting can be from poor posture, but if you're sitting 40 to 50 hours week over 5, 6 months or longer, you probably have decreased strength in your hips. When you do get up from your desk, your glutes, core and hip extensors will be weaker, and you don't feel as strong."
Low-impact types of exercises are the best way to keep your body in shape while not aggravating the pain in your hip. You should focus on exercises or workouts that you can do either lying down or sitting to reduce pressure on your hips.
The answer is to switch to non-weight-bearing exercise that takes the burden off of your hips and knees. "It allows you to move more freely, with less pain, and you wind up feeling better afterward," says Vijay A. Daryanani, a physical therapist and personal trainer with Harvard-affiliated Spaulding Outpatient Center.
Hip pain when walking can happen for many reasons. They include damage to the muscles, tendons, bones, or nerves around the hip, and chronic conditions such as arthritis and osteoporosis. A person can work with a doctor to figure out the cause of their hip pain and get the right treatment.
If you have hip pain only at night, odds are the culprit is your sleep position or mattress. Side sleepers are particularly prone to hip pain due to pressure on the hip joint. The opposite hip – the one you're not lying on – might hurt, too, if it strains forward.
Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are among the most common causes of hip pain, especially in older adults. Arthritis leads to inflammation of the hip joint and the breakdown of the cartilage that cushions your hip bones. The pain gradually gets worse.
One of the biggest causes of nighttime hip pain is sleeping on your side — a position most Americans prefer. Sleeping on an injured or arthritic hip puts pressure on the joint, so it's really no surprise that your symptoms are worse. But hip pain can worsen even if you sleep on your opposite side.
Leg or hip pain when walking.
The pain could be caused by a narrowing of the arteries that can limit oxygen flow to the tissue. People with diabetes are especially likely to experience this symptom as an early sign of heart disease.