After the knees, your hips are the largest joint in your body, each a ball-and-socket joint providing a great range of motion as well as plenty of strength to support your body. The ball of the femur is about the size of a small apple, sitting in a socket formed by the bones of your pelvis.
Despite its durability and strength, your hip can suffer from a wide range of injuries, resulting in pain that can bring your life to a halt.
Family nurse practitioner Savitri Gopaul of Commonwealth Pain Management and Wellness specializes in treating hip and knee pain so you can fulfill the daily tasks that keep your life in motion.
Sometimes, the problems affecting your hips are degenerative and nonreversible, making pain management an important part of your life. Conditions like osteoarthritis are with you for the long run, and things may lead to surgery, including total hip replacement.
It’s never an easy decision to balance the pros and cons of surgery versus continuing with more conservative therapies. Schedule a consultation with us when you’re ready to discuss treatment alternatives. We’ve prepared this primer to help start the conversation.
Most joints in your body are susceptible to soft tissue problems that cause pain and loss of mobility. Your hips are no different, and they can suffer from conditions like bursitis and tendinitis, though these are generally reversible conditions that heal with treatment.
Osteoarthritis is a common problem in hips that we can’t cure. A wear-and-tear condition that generally gets worse with time, osteoarthritis and other forms of arthritis can lead to surgery, including hip replacement procedures, as damage accumulates within the joint.
Once hip pain from arthritis begins, it’s often possible to slow its progression and keep pain manageable. This usually takes a combination of therapies that together keep you comfortable, free of pain, and mobile.
This usually requires elements of treatment that you perform at home as well as those that we provide at Commonwealth Pain Management and Wellness.
You may use cold and hot therapy to manage inflammation and pain, physical therapy exercises to build strength and maintain flexibility, resting when appropriate, and wearing braces or wraps for support.
Over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can help you control occasional periods of greater pain and swelling.
We can add additional therapies, including prescription pain medications, though these have limited value when treating chronic hip pain. Injectable therapies like corticosteroids or hyaluronic acid injections may be suitable in some cases too.
There are many factors to balance in the surgery decision, including your age and the expected life of a hip replacement prosthetic. Postponing surgery is sometimes a consideration so you don’t require revision surgery at an advanced age.
Otherwise, failure of conservative treatments to reduce pain and restore mobility is usually the focus of a decision to move forward with aggressive treatments. There are hip pain surgeries that don’t involve replacement too.
At Commonwealth Pain Management and Wellness, we’re here to provide you with the information you need, including referrals to specialists when the time comes. Call or click to contact our Richmond, Virginia, office to schedule your hip pain consultation today.
