Hip Impingement: What Is It and Can a Chiropractor Help?

Hip Impingement: What Is It and Can a Chiropractor Help?

heal hip impingement

What is hip impingement?

Have you ever felt an unusual pain or stiffness in your thighs or groin? Sometimes people who suffer from hip impingement feel a pain deep in the glutes or feel their hips pop when bending over or moving forward.

Unfortunately, not much is known about the cause of hip impingement. But what’s certain is you want to find pain relief.

What is Hip Impingement?

Imagine a cup with a small ball inside. Got that image in your head? Now apply that picture to your hip socket. Doctors refer to the ball of your hip as a “femoral head.” Your hip curves into a “cup” shape called an acetabulum. The acetabulum is surrounded by cartilage. Sometimes the cartilage gets pinched. Hence, hip impingement or what the medical establishment calls, femoroacetabular impingement (FAI.)

According to Hopkins Medicine, there are two types of Hip Impingements (FAI). One occurs due to a deformity in the femoral head and the other type is due to an abnormal shape of the acetabulum (the cup.) Imagine if the cup is misshapen and covers too much of the femoral head. That can lead to painful friction. It’s one example of how a hip impingement can present to your medical professional. It’s also possible to have a combination of the two.

Hip impingement can be an early sign of osteoarthritis.

Symptoms of a Hip Impingement

The symptoms can vary from person to person, but these are common issues:

    • Pain after sitting for long periods
    • Pain as you rotate your hip
    • Pain while and/or after running
    • Stiffness of the hip, groin, or thigh 

You’ll know the difference between pain from an overzealous exercise class and chronic hip pain.

Diagnosis

A physical examination and imaging tests can help your medical professional assess hip impingement. For example:

  • X-ray
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
  • CT Scan

Many chiropractors offer X-rays and can make further referrals if you’re seeking a natural pain relief solution. Yet, other things can also cause hip pain. For example, a pinched nerve or sciatica can both be painful (and chiro care can help them too.)

Seeking Non-surgical Relief? A Chiropractor Can Help!

Firstly, your chiropractor may diagnose your hip impingement and offer you exercises to strengthen your core and lower back. In some cases, better posture and an ergonomic work area will help. What won’t help is ignoring the pain. You can take an over-the-counter pain killer like Ibuprofen but it only masks the systems so you’ll want to dig deeper.

When you take a proactive, surgical-free approach to pain relief, you know you need the right chiropractor or other medical professional and strength training. For example, an exercise program focusing on mobility and strength is core to natural pain relief and aging gracefully. You may find a therapeutic yoga class helps or a combination of massage therapy and chiropractic care with gentle yoga.

There’s no doubt, everyone’s body is different. Yet, in Doylestown, Pa, Dr. Jeff Mcquaite can help you feel your best through traditional chiropractic care. McQuaite chiropractic takes most insurance and offers a free consultation. 

 

 

Can Chiropractic Relieve Your Joint Pain?

Can Chiropractic Relieve Your Joint Pain?

chiropractic for joint pain

Photo by Lucaxx Freire on Unsplash

Most people associate chiropractic care with back pain. Yet, your chiropractor can help in other ways too. Take chiropractic for joint pain.

It might make sense that a chiropractic adjustment to your spine can relieve shoulder pain, but you might not think about it helping your knees or ankles, or even wrists. But it’s possible.

The reason why is your entire body is connected. You know this, of course, and if you think back to that old song about the hip bone connected to the thigh bone, that’s a good reminder.

With each bone connected to the next and the nerves acting as the messengers for your brain’s communication system, your body operates as a whole (even if we don’t always treat it as such.)

An Ankle Joint Injury Can Affect Your Body

Take an ankle injury on the left side of your body. It’s likely that the right side will find ways to compensate by adjusting your stride or stance for example. Yet, even micro-adjustments make a difference and you may find yourself with an eventual knee injury on your right side because you “favored” one side. However, a chiropractor may be able to help prevent the second joint injury by helping your body maintain it’s balance and symmetry.

The chiropractic approach is to assess your overall health and where your joint pain is located. Here at McQuaite Chiropractic, we run an x-ray of all new patients so we can see what’s going on. For example, your treatment could incorporate gentle manipulation or short sharp bursts of spinal manipulation.

We have a range of specific tools to relieve pain and improve your mobility including the special chiropractic table, TENS treatment, and a small rubber hammer. You can find out more about our treatments here.

Of course, whether chiropractic can help your joint pain depends on your body.

For example, arthritis can cause joint pain but not all arthritis can be safely treated by chiropractic care. So, we want to know if you have arthritis and if so, what type. Assuming you’re a good candidate for chiropractic care for your joint pain, you’ll probably be pleased with the benefits.

The Benefits of Chiropractic for Joint Pain Include:

  • Improved flexibility and mobility
  • Better range of motion
  • Reduced inflammation
  • Pain relief

Each of these can lead to more motivation to exercise or participate in other activities that you might have declined before due to pain. After all, if your joint pain is keeping you from participating in your favorite activities, wouldn’t you want to change that situation?

If you’re in the Doylestown, Pa, area, we’d love to offer you a consultation. That way we can see if chiropractic may be able to relieve your joint pain.