Hip Pain

The hip joint bears much of the body's weight and is critical for mobility. Hip pain can come from the joint itself, from the joints at the back of the pelvis, from muscles pulling unevenly, or from the lower back sending pain down into the hip. It is common in athletes, during pregnancy, and after a collision. We look at how the hip and pelvis are moving together and at the muscles working around them.

Hip pain is one of those complaints where the word covers a lot of ground. When someone points at their hip they might mean the groin, the bony point on the outside, the buttock, or a band of soreness across the back of the pelvis, and those point at different things. The joint itself can be the source. So can the tendons on the outside of the hip, the muscles that cross the pelvis, or the joints where the pelvis meets the base of the spine. A fair share of what people call hip pain actually comes from the lower back, which is why an exam that only looks at the hip can miss the answer. Hips also tend to be patient before they get loud. People describe months of stiffness getting out of the car well before anything really hurts.

We see a lot of it in our Wells Branch office, and it arrives from very different directions. Runners and weekend athletes who did too much too fast. Desk workers whose hips have spent years folded in a chair. People in their sixties and seventies whose hips mostly complain about getting out of a low seat. Pregnant patients dealing with a pelvis that's loosening and shifting week by week. Someone whose walk changed after an ankle or knee problem, whose hip has been quietly absorbing the difference ever since. The pain often gets described the same way by all of them, which is why what you tell us matters as much as the hands-on part. What you were doing when it started, what makes it better, and what you've stopped doing usually narrows things faster than the ache itself does.

A first visit starts with that story and then gets specific. Dr. Shelly Hogan and Dr. Nicole Edwards look at how you walk, how the pelvis sits, how far the hip moves in each direction and where that movement stops, whether the joints at the back of the pelvis move evenly, and whether pressing on particular muscles and tendons reproduces what you've been feeling. They'll check the lower back too, because that referral pattern is common enough that skipping it would be careless. If what turns up is something better handled by another kind of doctor, we'll say so and help you get there rather than starting a course of care and hoping.

Where care fits, it usually combines adjustments to the pelvis and lower back, work on the joints at the back of the pelvis, hands-on treatment for the muscles around the hip, and strengthening for the muscles that hold the pelvis steady, because movement without strength tends not to hold. Custom orthotics are sometimes part of it when the way you load your foot is feeding the problem upward. Both doctors are trained in the Webster technique, a gentle pelvic approach used with pregnant patients, which is one reason we see so much pregnancy-related hip and pelvic discomfort here. The office is at 3407 Wells Branch Pkwy, Suite 625, in Wells Branch, North Austin, with parking right at the door, and the Chicoine family has been caring for people in this part of town since 1989. Book online or call (512) 255-1777.