Hip Pain

After the knee, hip problems are certainly one of the more common problems that patients ask me about. Of course, the most common condition is Osteoarthritis or “wear and tear” arthritis.

Potential sources of hip pain include the hip joint as well as the surrounding structures including the tenderness muscle attachments.

History and physical examination are able to help elucidate potential other reasons for the hip pain. A careful examination of the lumbar spine and the pelvis is important.

Imaging studies certainly are very useful including x-ray and MRI as medically indicated.

Depending on the findings interventional treatments included injections into the hip joint with steroid as well as outside the hip joint.

If the patient does not want to consider hip replacement surgery then PRP and stem cells therapy is a viable option.

If there is little or no joint space and the patient is close to a “bone-on-bone” situation, we are generally going to lean towards starting the regenerative healing with stem cells and PRP, rather than PRP alone. In other words, because the condition is more severe, we would like to start with a more powerful approach.

On the other hand, if joint space is preserved, PRP may be the order of the day and quite proficient at healing joint capsules and pelvic tendon attachments. It usually takes about three PRP treatments given at 2-4-week intervals for satisfactory resolution.