Are you suffering from hip pain? Is your pain at the front of hip? Your side of your hip? Your side of your hip but lower down your leg? Is your hip pain more at the back then the front or the side?
These are the questions our Oakville Chiropractors ask to all our hip pain patients. If your hip pain is at the front it is most likely a hip flexor or psoas issue. If your hip pain is at the back or the side it is most likely an SI Joint or a Glute issue or even an IT Band issue. However, if your hip pain is a little lower than your bum at the outside top of your leg it could be Greater Trochanteric Bursitis.
What is Greater Trochanteric Bursitis?
Greater Trochanteric Bursitis or Hip Bursitis can be confused with hip joint bursitis but it is a completely different thing. Greater Trochanteric Bursitis is a painful condition that can affect old and young, athletic and sedentary. The pain is usually located on the outside of your hip at the top of your leg. In most cases, the patient will have limited range of motion of their leg and low back. The pain will get worse with sitting or with increased physical activity. Lying on the injured side will most likely cause pain within minutes. Most patients will be unable to bring their knee to their chest without severe lateral hip pain.
Diagnosing Greater Trochanteric Bursitis
Getting the right diagnosis is key to any treatment plan at our Oakville clinic. Dr. Steve needs to make sure your hip pain isn’t coming from your back, glute, hip joint or somewhere else. Once he determines you have a diagnosis of Trochanteric Bursitis he will most likely treat not only the outside of your hip, but also your ITB, Glutes and SI Joint. Treatment will most likely include shockwave therapy and a manual adjustment of your back!
Causes of Trochanteric Bursitis
Although there are many causes of Greater Trochanteric Bursitis, Dr. Steve usually sees this diagnosis in people who work at a desk all day, patients who are active with super tight leg muscles, and patients who SI Joint or Pelvis are locked up in the wrong position causing an increase in tension of the muscles of the outside of the hip. In some cases the hip pain is from a fall and might be something else completely.
Shockwave Treatment for Trochanteric Bursitis – Hip Pain
Once the diagnosis of Greater Trochanteric Bursitis has been given. Treatment will begin with the patient lying on their good side with the bad side facing up. Before the Shockwave Therapy, Dr. Steve Knighton will use a combination of Suction IFC (Interferential Current Therapy) and heat to increase blood flow to the injured area and prepare for the next phase of treatment.
After the heat and IFC the patient will receive Shockwave Therapy on the outside of their hip/upper leg. Shockwave Therapy at our Oakville clinic involves an air powered gun that shoots a bullet against an applicator head 15 times a second for up to 1500 hits. The power of the shockwave machine is determined by the patients pain tolerances and go between 0.3BAR and 5.0BAR. Ultrasound gel is applied to the affected area for shockwave treatment to ensure a 100% contact and therapeutic effectiveness.
After the shockwave therapy, Dr. Steve will use some tools to “scrape” the affected hip area and surrounding tissue with Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Therapy. He might choose to do some Active Release Therapy on the glute muscles or IT Band too! If needed he will perform a chiropractic adjustment of the low back and SI joint to re-align the hips, Sacral Iliac Joint and the low back.
What Your Treatment Plan Will Look Like
Treatment plans for Greater Trochanteric Bursitis can range from 1 month to 3 months and 8 visits to 20 visits depending on the timeline and severity of the injury. Almost all patients will go home with icing instructions and some sort of stretching program to get the healing started faster and get them back to want they want to do