5 Non-Surgical Strategies to Ease Arthritis-Related Hip Pain
Hip pain has various causes, one of the most prevalent being osteoarthritis. If you've tried conservative measures like activity modification, medications, and physical therapy without significant relief, joint injections may be a good option.
At the Regenerative Medical Group, our team offers natural treatments to treat varying forms of arthritis, including in your hip. Dr. Bryn J. Henderson is an experienced general practitioner offering state-of-the-art MSK injections and osteopathic manipulation to ease your hip discomfort.
Causes of hip arthritis
Hip arthritis is a condition that leads to irreversible damage in your hip joints. It causes the breakdown of essential protective tissues in your hip joint, often leading to chronic inflammation and pain.
Various types of arthritis affect your hip, including osteoarthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Although they're all different, each type of arthritis ultimately destroys essential components in your hip.
Arthritis can affect anyone; the CDC states that more than 58 million people in the United States are living with some form of arthritis. Your risk factors increase with the following circumstances:
- Older age
- Obesity
- Family history
- Previous injury
- Developmental dysplasia
Arthritis affects every aspect of your life, including work and home activities. When you catch it early, you're more likely to get relief from nonsurgical measures and put off more damage in your hip joint.
Do you need surgery?
Hip pain is severe, but you don't necessarily need surgery to fix the problem. Many other types of treatments are available to you before you consider surgical intervention.
Surgery is highly invasive, especially when it comes to hip replacement surgery. Although it's often effective, surgery isn't the first option because of the risks and prolonged recovery time.
If your pain is enough to be uncomfortable but not when you can't perform simple activities like walking and climbing stairs, you can first try other less invasive treatments to ease your discomfort.
Our team may refer you for a surgical consult if all other conservative treatments have failed to eliminate your pain and your daily activities are effectively severely impacted by your pain or immobility.
Five effective nonsurgical treatments
Our team's goal is to help you regain function and reduce pain in your hip without surgery. We offer several nonsurgical options for long-term pain relief, including the following:
1. Osteopathic manual manipulation
Dr. Henderson uses osteopathic manual manipulation to promote health and wellness in your body, especially when you have arthritis. He uses gentle stretching techniques and fascial release to encourage blood flow, improve pain, and increase joint function.
2. Physical therapy
Physical therapy aims to allow you to improve functionality, decrease pain, and improve your quality of life when living with hip arthritis. A physical therapist forms a customized plan, including building strength, stretching, and using active movement to improve the function of your joint.
3. MSK injections
Musculoskeletal injections are incredibly effective in helping relieve hip arthritis pain. These injections reduce inflammation in your joint, improve joint lubrication, and promote the growth of new tissues in your joint. MSK injections also help to slow the progression of degenerative conditions like arthritis.
4. Medications
You may want to add medications to your routine when lifestyle modifications don't work. Our team recommends anti-inflammatory drugs to help you reduce pain in your hips.
5. Lifestyle modifications
Your hip pain could worsen from your lifestyle choices, which is an easy fix with a few tweaks to your routine. For instance, you can lose weight if you're obese, which puts excess pressure on your hip and knee joints.
Switching up your exercise routine to include low-impact activities like swimming or biking is another good option for living with hip arthritis.
To get customized treatment for your hip pain, don't hesitate to call our office today. You can also request an appointment online.