What Is Hip Bursitis?

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Hip pain is common for bikers, runners, other athletes and the elderly. Hip bursitis is very often the cause of this hip pain, and usually is fairly easy to treat.

Bursitis is the inflammation of the bursae which are little jelly like sacs found near joints and bony areas throughout the body such as our knees, elbows shoulders and hips. Our hips have two bursa sacs and any both are common victims of bursitis when you overuse your hip. The greater trochanter bursa, which covers the bony point of the hip bone on your outer side, can become inflamed when you’re hip undergoes repetitive motions that it is not ready for, like suddenly increasing your bike route difficulty. This causes trochanteric bursitis. Pain from trochanteric bursitis will start at the outer point of your hip and extend down the outside part of your thigh. Left untreated, it can span across a larger area of your hip. Lying down on the affected area will bring on pain as well as walking and climbing up stairs.

The iliopsoas bursa is not as commonly injured, but can become inflamed when dealing with hip arthritis or during sports that require a lot of jumping. This pain is usually felt in the groin region.

Avoiding activities that cause your hip pain will help keep symptoms from worsening. Physical therapy will always be your first step to treating hip bursitis. A physical therapy routine  help strengthen the muscles around the hip and promote flexibility. This helps take some of the pressure of the hip which will in turn help reduce the pain. Massaging, ice and heat might also help to relieve immediate symptoms.

If your hip bursitis has become severe enough that conservative treatment is not effective, corticosteroid injections are a useful alternative. Injection therapy can provide pain relief for months and if pain returns another injection can safely continue providing relief while you perform physical therapy.

Surgery is rarely used for this type of pain. If the pain persists after all the other non-surgical options have been tried, your physician might want to remove the inflamed bursa. The surgery can be done on a same-day basis and soreness from the surgery can wear off in just a few days.

Rupesh Tarwala, MD is an expert hip orthopedist with international training and recognition. He, along with the rest of the orthopedists and physiatrists and NY Bone and Joint Specialists, provides the highest standard of care in NYC. Years of experience and excellence have made our practice the top rated in New York City and New Jersey. Our practice has one goal: a better quality of life for our patients.

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