How do you know if you have hip bursitis or not?

Hip bursitis is a pretty common issue particularly in women. In fact 1 in 4 women will have it at some time.

But how do you know if you have it or not?

There are a couple of classic things we are looking for when talking to a patient that might suggest they have hip bursitis.

Firstly is if they have pain in the side of their hip. This pain may radiate around to their back, into their groin or even down into their leg. It can be hard to know for sure just off pain location as it often gets mistaken for a back problem.

That’s why we also want to know what things aggravate it. Typically speaking it is things like lying on your side, prolonged sitting, prolonged standing and walking.

To rule out hip arthritis we might ask or even just watch you taking off your shoes and socks. From the research we know that taking shoes and socks off will typically irritate hip arthritis and not affect hip bursitis.

And finally, especially here at Elite Physiotherapy, we are always looking for a reason why. Why did this start being a problem? Classically speaking, bursitis is triggered by one of two things.

The first is a sudden change to your activity. This could be starting a new exercise routine or increasing the intensity. It could be changing jobs. Or it could even be that you were unwell and not active for a while. In this case just normal life on top of your de-conditioned body can trigger it off.

The second cause is blunt trauma to the side of the hip. Usually this is from falling onto the side of your hip but I have seen it from repeatedly hitting the hip when boating on rough waters.

If you are struggling with hip pain and would like more tailored advice on what your recovery could be like with Elite Physiotherapy then please get in touch with us on (07) 4999 9773.

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