4 Common causes of Hip/Groin Pain
In this post, we will discuss about all possible causes of hip pain that is commonly seen in chiropractic clinic. This involves pain on the back, side and front of the hip including the groin.
Gluteus medius/maximus muscle tightness
Gluteus medius and maximus are muscles of the hip on the side. Just by being tight, it can cause pain. These muscles are pretty much involved in most of the exercises, including running, weight-lifting, side movements and etc. Note that because it is involved in a lot of activities, this is the muscle that is often addressed by chiropractors or any other musculoskeletal therapists when there is lower back or leg injuries. If the cause is simply from strenuous activities, it can be foam rolled to relieve it.
Also these muscles can become tight as a result of disc injuries, as the nerve that runs down from our lumbar spine innervates these muscles. In this case, foam rolling does not help much as the cause is the disc. Also foam rolling these muscles involve side sitting or lying on the foam roll which is not good for lumbar discs when it’s torn. This is because full rage side stretching or rotation tears the annulus pulposus of the disc.
Tensor Fascia Lata(TFL) muscle tightness
Tensor fascia lata is a muscle that is in the front of the gluteus medius muscle. Similar to the gluteus muscle, when it gets tight it causes pain. If the tightness lasts long, it can cause significant swelling so foam rolling is important. TFL changes into something called an ilio-tibial band. This is a soft tissue that runs down from the side of the hip to the side of the knee. So if the TFL becomes very tight and pulls on the IT band, it can cause knee pain as well. If the tension on the IT band lasts long, it can cause friction on the muscles which is called IT band syndrome. If it’s a numbness instead of a pain, it is a different diagnosis called meralgia parasthetica.
Sacro-iliac ligament sprain
Our pelvis has a lot of ligaments surrounding the pelvis, the ones near the Sacro-iliac joints are called Sacro-iliac ligaments. These can cause referral pain to the hip muscles including the gluteus maximus when sprained. This takes a bit of time to recover as our ligaments can take up to 6 to 12 weeks to heal. But I noticed my patients normally get better in about 2 sessions. The pain may disappear in that time but the ligament are still recovering so even when the pain is gone, patients should not engage in strenuous activities. These ligaments can become torn when
Erector spinae muscle referral pain
Our muscles are innervated by nerves. Our skins are also innervated by nerves, and some of them go up the same nerve roots in the spine. When the muscle becomes very tight, it can send a very strong signal up the nerve and trigger something called referral pain. The erector spinae muscle in the lower part of the lumbar spine can refer the pain to the side of the hip around gluteus medius muscle area when it is very tight.