What's the heck is wrong with my freakin hip??!!!! Help me please!

A few questions:

Does it hurt at all while you are not bearing weight?

Does it hurt when you cough really hard or bear down?

Does lifting your knee toward your chest cause pain?

- does it hurt more/less raising your knee toward your midline?

- does it hurt more/less raising your knee away from your body?

How would your describe the pain (throbbing, stabbing, dull/achy, burning, sharp, twinge-y etc.)

Are you a male or female?

If you palpate the soft area between your pubic bone and the crease of your hip, can you find any especially tender areas? Try moving your leg through its range of motion while pressing your fingers into this area. Does your pain seem to be coming from this area or more lateral to it?

Okay, sorry for all the questions, but I can examine you myself, so I have to do the best I can with visualizing what's going on with you.

I'll see what I can do for you with the information you can provide me :)

Also, when did you have your MRI?

MRI's can give you a false negative for stress fractures if the bone has enough time to form a significant callous beforehand. If you had taken enough time off before your MRI and the area was no longer as acutely inflamed, you may have gotten a false negative.

You might be able to talk to the doctor who looked at your results and ask him/her about this possibility. Many times doctors just assume that your are visiting them immediately after hurting yourself, so they don't take into consideration that you may have had time to heal a little.

dude,

get another MRI - have them check your sacrum. i had the pain as you describe and finally got an mri and all hip issues related to stress fracture in my sacrum. apparently distance runners get this shit and no one else. it was a runner/MD who finally had me check this and we found the cause of my hip issues.

good luck.

Hi, yes I mentioned to the doctor that i had been resting for 10 days. I had a femoral necl stress reaction last year in the other hip, and so that was my guess as symptoms felt similar, and I told him as much. However, he double checked the femoral neck and got a specialist consultant there to look at it too but found nothing to flag it. The difference between this pain and that is that it doesn't hurt at all at rest, whereas the FNSR used to ache at night. I have no night-time pain.

In response to your questions (and no need to apologise you're heloing me out here :-) ), It rarely hurts when at rest, but right now it feel a little tingly as i tried running on it today to test it and think i aggravated it slightly, as a rule though, no, it's fine at rest. Doesn't hurt at all to cough. It doesn't hurt to lift knee to chest, likewise with midline/ away from body knee raise, though when i raise the injured leg away from body with knee out, there's a deep click i notice, but no painful and think ive always had it. The pain is pretty stabbing, but right now after some single-leg hops to test it, it's achy and darting, and am feeling it around the back of that round bone outside of hip as well as on the front. I'm a 23-year old male, had my bone density tested, and apart from a couple% below normal in lower spine, was told the rest was in normal range if that matters. Have had si joint dysfunction/ malalignment before also. Palpating the soft area between pubic bone and crease of hip, I couldn't find any especially sore areas, likewise through range of motion. The pain seems to be coming from that area, certainly stared there, but now feels like a deep ache in around the head of the femur.

He also said the labrum appeared fine, but think after today's experience of it barely any better after 3wks off it, I'm goin to ask him tomorrow for another appt, because there's something very wrong in there.

Many thanks for your help and advice. All suggestions appreciated.

I had bursitis in both hips after doing a hurdle type free running workout. It got progressively worse over the course of a week. I could barely walk and was screaming from the pain. The doctor prescribed the anti-inflamatory Piroxicam (pharmacist said it is like taking 12 Advils; take with food) and it got better relatively quickly. I would take some Advil if I were you.

I've had the identical issue in the past (sophomore year in college). Turned out to be my piriformis (sp?). Cycling is the WORST for it. Weights helped a ton and actually NOT stretching helped for some reason I'm not sure.

Weights, massage, rest, and compression. Oh yeah...ice as much as you possibly can throughout the day.

I was 23. The pain was sharp and intense in both hips near the groin area. I could not control my screaming when I walked into the doctor's office. I didn't do any running (impossible anyway) or physical activity and it didn't improve until I saw the doctor 10 days later.

Ice it, and move.

Repeat.

Check to make sure you don't sleep on anything that is pressing into your hip.

I would definitely get a follow-up MRI. I had a fracture last fall that didn't show up on my first MRI and what you are describing does sound fracture-like. However, it could be due to an irritated nerve, a tight psoas (which may cause nerve irritation also) or bursitis like a previous poster suggested. If you don't have any pain bringing your knee up to your chest, I wouldn't think you have tendonitis, but I can't rule it out either.

You may want to bring up the possibility of nerve involvement with your radiologist. MRIs don't always show nerve damage or inflammation when they are not done with the intent of looking for those things specifically, so it may be a good idea to at least discuss this possibility before a second MRI.

Do you by any chance have pain in your lower back (a few inches below you last ribs)?

my hip was in soo much discomfort until i finally went to a SPORTS chiropractor. he adjusted a joint which loosened up my hip and gave my exercises to do...so go see a specialized sports chiroprator if you have one.

I had a stress fracture in my femoral neck and this sounds alot like my experience. It was also diagnosed as a groin strain, sciatica, a labral tear and a couple other things before they found the fracture.

I would ask them to check again for a fracture in the hip, sacrum, pelvis, etc. If it is definitely not a stress fracture then it could be something in the lower back, so have an MRI there as well...sometimes that can refer pain down the leg.

Push the doctors to figure it out. I spent like two weeks being evaluated to get diagnosed because it didn't present as a stress fracture.

Hi, thanks for all the responses. I don't think it's hip bursitis as they checked for that but couldn't find anything, and I hit the anti-inflams but they didn't make a difference. Don't think it's piriformis either as cycling is pain-free for me at the moment, though at the very start it would hurt if I pressed down hard on the pedal. The nerve idea sounds very plausible alright, so I'll be sure to ask about that, and make him double check the lower back, although I have 0 low back pain and it is usually a deep pain in the front of hip. I'm trying to get in to see my osteopath/ chiro who is well-renowned and very good at adjustments, just waiting on an appointment.

I'm currently bugging the doctor for another appt at least and possibly another mri, so will let you know his opinion, cost is a beeatch but i'd pay anything to get back running!

Let your body heal itself, I know you will get results with it works for everyone.

It has wounders for myself and many others who I have introduced it to.

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You say that you had SIJD/malalignment before. What were the symptoms of that, if you don't mind me asking.

I'm currently having pain in the sacral/glute area (hurts to press on the joint area), and I'm trying to distinguish between SFX and dysfunction. I can "pop" something in the SIJ area and feel a little relief from time to time. Feels like a lot of pressure in the low back/sacroiliac region.

I also have severe tightness in the gluteus medius/QL area (above and below PSIS) and adductor on that side. Chiro adjusted my hips 2 weeks ago, but that didn't make too much of a difference with the pain.

Injury happened during a run, and in the two weeks leading up to that fateful day I had a lot of tightness in my lower back with low-level ache in the affected glute.

Managed to run yesterday after ~12 days off, but my stride felt really awkward and the pain returned in the SI region. Linear leg swings (forward) seem to replicate the painful feeling on that side.

When I had SIJD, I only really discovered it because of upper hamstring problems. The physio eventually referred me on to an osteopath after they recurred. It may not have been serious enough to cause pain where the problem was (lower back/ sacrum/ glute) like it is for you, but it threw things off line and wreaked havoc with the hamstrings. It took 4 adjustments before the problem was corrected (and this guy wasn't just looking for business and bringing me back, he has a 3-month waiting list), but the adjustments solved my hamstring issue, and now it only takes one maybe once or twice a year to keep things in line. If your sacrum is off line, a chiro/ osteopath is your best bet, but realise that you may need a few treatments, as it's probably been like that for years. I had a lot of tightnesses and parts caught up in glutes/ lower back when i had it, but only noticeable when a physio got stuck into them. It's like a domino effect, jam the si joint, everything else starts locking up and going wrong around it.

The lower back pain I asked about would indicate a psoas problem, but you don't always have lower back pain with such an injury. The reason I asked about this, is that often, psoas tightness can lead to nerve irritation. The other nerve problem you could run into is nerve entrapment.

If a nerve is involved, your pain would most likely be shooting and almost like getting an electrical shock. It may also cause the tingling you have described.

Does the pain shoot down your leg?

The pain does travel down my leg a bit, sometimes along the inner thigh about 2/3 way to knee, but usually is confined to the hip area, feels like an ache of some sort. I'm seeing my sports doc tomorrow anyway so should have some more info on it by then, I'll be sure to ask him about any possible nerve entrapment etc.

You might want to get checked for a labral tear. This most likely wouldn't show up on a regular MRI, it may take a dye injection to reveal it.

Definitely ask about pinched nerves and referred pain from the lower back. If it's one of these sometimes a steroid taper will do wonders.

If none of this works get a bone scan for a stress fracture or stress reaction.

Since last October, my legs (mainly quads) have been dying on me during runs. They feel the same way any muscles would when you lift a weight to the point where you can't lift it anymore. They aren't week, but just feel heavy, bloated, tired, etc. This problem has kicked in during races, workouts, tempo runs, and easy runs. It's not everyday, but happens more often than not at this point. I have a pinched nerve at L5/S1. All other tests, including iron, are normal. I was running 90-100 miles a week on a DI team and was in the best shape of my life last fall. Now I'm struggling to run 30 minutes a day. I especially feel like my left hip flexor is not firing properly. Until recently I had no pain anywhere, just the weird feeling in my legs. Now I can feel a weird sensation in my back and my legs have started to hurt when I try to run. You should look into a lumar spine MRI if you haven't gotten one already. This will let you know if you have a pinched nerve. I think muscle entrapment is different and is more of a muscular issue that would be fixed by PT, ART, a chiropractor, or acupuncture. Good luck.