If some nerves are slow or are not signaling correctly, then we know that an angry nerve is the culprit of the symptoms. Needles can be put into your leg to see the conduction or activity of nerves. These injections act as both a therapeutic and diagnostic tool we can use as physicians.Īnother route we can take is an EMG or nerve conduction test. However, if your pain has dispersed after a numbing injection, then we have located the area of the root cause. If there is no response to the numbing injection in the hip area for example, then that is obviously not where the root cause of the pain is located. Essentially, we will numb up an area of the hip or lower back and see what happens.
SHIFTED SPINE SERIES
If you are still in pain after trying more conservative treatment options such as anti-inflammatories and physical therapy, and the x-ray or MRI imaging studies aren’t showing us what exactly is wrong, we can do a series of numbing injections to clear the fog. What can we do if the diagnosis isn’t clear? The pain goes down the back of the hamstring, past the knee, and to the outside or back of the calf. Patients with debilitating back issues develop symptoms in the back of the hip near the buttocks. What are the symptoms of lower back conditions? The pain is worse initially, but after a couple of limping steps, the hip lubrication kicks in, and the pain subsides.
Sometimes the pain will radiate into the front of the thigh but very rarely goes past the knee.Īfter sitting for a period of time, patients suffering from hip pathology find it difficult to walk when they first get up. In general, people suffering from hip pain from hip pathology have symptoms that appear in the front of the hip and the groin area. There is often more than one diagnosis, but an early and an exhaustive physical exam of all potential areas that could be the root cause of the problem is key in determining the correct diagnosis. A minimally invasive surgery was performed, and his pain was gone immediately.Īgain, hip and lower back orthopedics is not always straight forward. It turned out that the 元 and L4 nerves in his back were being compressed, and the symptoms were appearing in his hip. I looked over his symptoms and decided to have a MRI performed on his lower back, even though he had absolutely zero pain coming from his lumbar spine. This man’s symptoms started in April and proceeded to get worse and worse to the point that he was in a wheelchair when he came to the OrthoVirginia office in August. His treatment plan moved on to a stem cell injection with platelet rich plasma in the hip, which also offered no improvement to his symptoms. He then received a cortisone shot in the hip, and that didn’t work either. So, he started physical therapy for a period of time and saw no improvement. It was determined that he had mild arthritis in the hip, but the arthritis should not have caused the extensive symptoms he was enduring. He saw a physician and had an x-ray of the hip area performed. Let me share a quick example.Ī fifty-year-old gentleman had severe pain in the outside of his hip. Yet, these studies can sometimes show abnormalities that are not actually the root cause of the pain. When seeing a physician for hip or lower back pain, imaging such as x-rays and MRIs are usually conducted at the sight of the symptoms. When a flare up of symptoms occur in our hips or lower back, usually a combination of rest, activity modification, anti-inflammatories, and exercises calms the pain down. Eighty to ninety percent of the population develops a debilitating back or hip pain at some point in their life, and this issue is the second most common reason for missed work behind the common cold.įortunately, our bodies typically take care of the issue on their own. Sometimes back pain comes from the back, but a lot of times back pain comes from the hip. To put it plainly, sometimes hip pain comes from the hip, but a lot of times hip pain comes from the back. The anatomy of the hip and back is comprised of numerous parts that can be injured or wear out, and many problems that occur in this area can display the exact same symptoms or pathology. As a practicing spine surgeon for the last fifteen years, I’ve found that determining the root issue of someone’s pain in these areas is often grey and filled with ambiguities. Orthopedic treatment of hip and lower back pain is not black and white.