Hip Pain

Chronic hip pain can be miserable, making it hard to stay active and depriving you of sleep. If you have hip pain that isn’t getting better, visit Balcones Pain Consultants at their offices in Austin, Cedar Park, or Marble Falls, Texas. The highly skilled pain specialists use advanced treatments such as steroid injections and biologics to reduce pain and improve function. Call Balcones Pain Consultants today or schedule a consultation online for expert hip pain treatment.

What is hip pain?

Hip pain includes any pain or discomfort occurring in your hip joint, groin, or thigh. Hip joints are some of the biggest in your body. Like your shoulders, they’re ball-and-socket joints, formed from the ball-shaped top of your femur (thigh bone) and a socket (acetabulum) in your pelvis.

Cartilage, tendons, ligaments, and muscles hold the joint in place and enable you to move your hips. You also have lots of nerves and blood vessels in the joints. 

Hip pain can develop in response to a wide variety of issues affecting these structures, ranging from injuries and chronic conditions to reduced blood flow and the effects of aging.

Hip pain can sometimes indicate an underlying problem in your lower spine. Stiffness and a limited range of motion often accompany this type of hip pain. It may worsen with activity or when you lie on the affected side.

What are some common hip pain conditions?

Some of the hip pain conditions commonly seen at Balcones Pain Consultants include:

Arthritis

Arthritis causes chronic, aching pain and stiffness in your joints. The most common kind (osteoarthritis) develops after decades of wear on your joints. The protective articular cartilage covering the bones gradually wears away over your lifetime, leaving the bones exposed and able to rub together.

Bursitis

Bursitis is an overuse injury of the small sacs of fluid (bursae) in your joints. These sacs act as cushions but can sometimes become inflamed and chronically painful.

Avascular necrosis

Avascular necrosis (bone death) develops from a blood supply problem.

Sciatica

Sciatica is a spine condition caused by pressure on the sciatic nerve in your lower back. Because the sciatic nerve branches into each leg, sciatica often causes buttock and hip pain.

Conditions affecting the ball-and-socket part of your hip joint generally cause pain deep in the hip and groin. Soft-tissue conditions like bursitis are more likely to cause pain on the outer part of your hip and thigh and your buttock.

How is hip pain treated?

Balcones Pain Consultants offers a range of effective hip pain treatments, including:

• Physical therapy
• Medication
• Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and other biologics
• Steroid injections
• Nerve blocks
• Radiofrequency ablation
• Spinal cord stimulation  

In most cases, patients suffering from hip pain make significant progress using conservative and minimally invasive treatments.

If your hip pain is severe or disabling, call Balcones Pain Consultants today or book an appointment online.