For years I’ve struggled with hip pain. Like the story of the blind men and the elephant, doctors tend to see my issues through the lens of their own area of specialization, making it hard to get a good diagnosis. Finally, frustrated as the problem got worse and worse, I turned to YouTube* and now, for the first time in decades, I can feel that I’m on the mend. (*See a list of my favorite YouTue channels under Resources.)
I’m not a doctor, and my problem may be different from yours, but on these pages I hope to share what I learned about diagnosing, managing, and even treating hip problems.
Proceed with caution and at your own risk!
Articles
I've written some blog posts chronicling my journey to better hip health:
Resources
Here are some notes and videos that I kept over the course of my journey. I don't recommend everything here, but it is useful to begin your own research.
Diagnosing your hip pain
- It is very hard to identify the true cause of your problem. This is why the adage “listen to your body” is useless. A pain in your knee might originate in your hip, and vice-versa. (Hip pain can show up in the lower back, shoulders, groin, etc.) Also, it is not uncommon for stiffness or weakness in one area to be masking stiffness and weakness in another, so as you improve one area the other might initially get worse. To get to the bottom of it you need to test and re-test regularly! Ideally you should work with a trained therapist, but if that isn’t an option, these videos show you some of the tests that a therapist might do when evaluating you.
Causes for hip pain
- Even if you manage to find exercises and stretches that relieve your symptoms, it is not unlikely that aspects of your lifestyle could continue to re-injure you if you don’t make changes. In this section I try to sort out some of the latest advice about things like standing vs. sitting, types of beds, etc.
Treating hip pain
- Depending on the problem you are facing (see the section on “diagnosing your hip pain” above), you will want to focus on different exercises, and perhaps avoid or alter some until you are stronger or looser in the affected area. On the other hand, if the problem is in your hips there is a lot of overlap in the kinds of exercises and stretches that are recommended. I have personally found it useful to carefully try all of them and see what feels good and what does not, working backwards from that info towards a diagnosis as well.