Your hip is susceptible to injuries for being the largest joint in the body. It supports your upper body and helps maintain balance, and facilitates movement. It is familiar to experience hip pain due to natural aging or some common health complications and injuries. Medical experts like the Genesis regenerative sports and aesthetic medicine hip pain specialists can help you diagnose your condition and learn how to manage it. If you have a painful hip, here are some steps you can follow towards working it and getting back to your quality life.
Get Proper Diagnosis
You might have an idea of why your hip is aching, but you must get an accurate diagnosis. Before anything else, contact your doctor and speak about your symptoms to help understand your condition. Your provider will evaluate and assess your situation, ask you several questions, and review your medical history to get to the root of your problem. Understand that your hip could be aching for many reasons besides physical injuries, such as arthritis, back complications, and bursitis. Your doctor can recommend tests like x-rays when they suspect an underlying cause for further investigation.
Relieve Pain Through Medications
Hip pain can be best soothed using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, mainly if your situation is caused by joint inflammation. You can ask your doctor about ibuprofen, aspirin, or naproxen to get pain relief for several hours. Such medications will lift the inflammation by blocking the enzymes that create the inflammation-causing chemicals in your body. If you do not get pain relief from over-the-counter medications, please consult your doctor to prescribe powerful painkillers.
Ice Therapy
You can reduce inflammation of your hip joint by holding ice to the hips. However, you can consult your doctor if it is your first time trying this therapy. First, you should never have the ice for over ten minutes, and you should break after every placement. You should wait for about an hour after icing your hip before going again and repeat it about three times a day until you can get relief.
Heat Therapy
You might also get hip pain relief by heating the joint. Heat can soothe the pain for several hours and help you take other necessary steps like visiting the hospital. You can consider taking a hot shower or bath or purchase a hot pad you can wear directly on your hip. However, please consult your doctor before using a heating pad since you should never use it when you have bursitis. It would be better to alternate between cold and heat therapy to find out which will work best for you.
Take it Easy
High-impact activities and exercises could make your hip pain worse. If you note that your condition worsens with specific activities, you must avoid them. Running and jumping may be difficult with hip pain, and it would be better if you walk to reduce the impact on your joints. But you might have to combine this with other alternatives to find more hip pain relief.
Rest
The best thing you can do when you have an injured hip is rest. It gives your hip time to heal hence reducing the pain. Anything you think might make you feel pain should be avoided, and instead, take an ice pack or a heating pad to soothe your pain as you rest. Look for something to calm and relax about, such as watching your favorite movies with a bowl of popcorn. Ensure you relax for about 24-48 hours and change your position as often as possible.
If you are bothered by hip pain, worry no more. The initial step is to get an accurate diagnosis, and the hip pain specialists at Genesis Orthopedic and Spine can help you. You can book an online appointment and learn more about managing your issue.
