Whether you are an athlete, an active person, or simply have lived a full life with the normal wear and tear that puts on your body, chances are you suffer from some type of joint pain.
You may have tried over-the-counter or prescription pain medications and anti-inflammatories, or may be considering surgery. Surgeons perform over 400 thousand hip replacement surgeries taking place in America each year.
Luckily, there are non-invasive alternative treatments for hip pain that do not involve joint replacement.
Symptoms and causes of hip pain
If the joint is not functioning properly, you might be suffering from any number of the following:
- Difficult finding a comfortable sleep position and staying asleep due to shooting pain
- Swelling and discomfort in the hip and groin area, including tenderness, and dull or sharp aches
- Reduction in mobility, including limping and difficult standing or walking
- Popping, or clicking sounds in the hip, known as crepitus
These symptoms could point to serious problems within the joint that can severely impact your quality of life and ability to move independently.
Causes of hip pain often include one of the following:
- Sciatica: if the sciatic nerve is being compressed by a herniated disk or other injury, the pain can radiate from the lower back down through the hips and into the legs.
- Trauma or injury: as we age, our bones become less resilient and more prone to significant damage from falls.
- Osteoarthritis: as we age, the cartilage inside the joints wears down, and creates a situation where bone is rubbing against bone, causing tremendous pain and immobility from the inflammation
- Sprains or strains in the lower back and groin area can also cause hip pain
Untreated, these conditions can rob you of your freedom and ability to engage in the lifestyle you want.
Non-surgical hip pain treatments
While joint replacement may seem to be an attractive option, it is problematic for several reasons: recovery time, health concerns related to invasive surgery and anesthesia, or other health-related obstacles to surgery. If invasive surgery can be avoided and you can treat the underlying issues causing the hip pain, it is natural that you would want to pursue the options.
Fortunately, recent advances give people more non-surgical options to explore for the tissue damage behind their symptoms.
One of these treatment options is Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) injections. In this treatment, blood from the patient is drawn and spun in a centrifuge to concentrate the platelets and the growth factors they carry.
That concentrated solution is then injected right at the site of the tissue damage. I this way, the cause is treated rather than just the symptoms, and without invasive procedures and the complications and effects those entail.