Hip Pain Makes Me Stop
If your hip pain is stopping you from doing your daily activities, something needs to be done and now. People find the acetabulum an easy joint to ignore, but it shouldn’t be. It’s a big ball joint with a large socket in the pelvic bones that has a lot of joint motion. When a person ignores hip pain, the body forms a scar in the joint. Because there is so much motion, it takes a lot of scar tissue building up before the joint pain becomes oppressive. At that point, it is getting too late. The joint has already lost articular cartilage, and we start to see the bone on bone type of pain.
What causes these joints to stop working right?
Usually a new injury will change the way that the joint works. As the injury ages, micro tears of the joint capsule and the supporting muscles lead to scar tissue. When the scars form, there is a significant chance that the hip will take a long time to heal. The injury can heal, when the joint is released. Healthy ligaments replace the scar and tendons allow for full range of motion. The hip, left in the fixed state, will develop scar tissue that becomes permanent. Then no amount of work will change it. Frequently, hip replacement with mechanical fasteners are the only way to reduce pain and get full movement back.
The Chiropractic Approach
As chiropractors, we adjust joints of all types. The hip, while a really mobile joint, is a fairly easy joint to adjust. We will use several techniques to adjust the hip. A straight osseous adjustment involves a high velocity thrust with distraction of the joint allowing for an increase in motion. An activator adjustment involves a mechanical instrument that delivers a super fast thrust with low force, making the adjustment less painful. The Charette technique of extremity adjusting, that I have used for nearly 20 years is one of the more effective techniques that I have used. All restore the joint motion and can give back some degree of pain free movement.
Like I said before, the earlier we catch the injury, the easier it is to restored the joint to normal. So, athletes who are either competing or training hard should be having maintenance adjustments done occasionally to any joint that has suffered injury. This is one of the reasons to have kids adjusted, especially once they have entered competitive sports. Then keep getting maintenance adjustments 4-6 times per year as you go on. Your future, very likely, depends on it.
