Easy Home Remedies for Hip Pain

At age 25, I was diagnosed with something called, “Snapping Hip Syndrome”, which is actually a genetic muscle problem. My hips will at times pop and crack loudly, even in public. Sometimes the pain is excruciating, most times I feel completely normal and have no problems moving whatsoever. Regretfully, I will likely need a hip replacement later in life. I also suffered bruised hip bones as a teenager in a minor car accident and must periodically visit a chiropractor to get my hips realigned. So I can tell you firsthand how to deal with regularly occurring hip pain, no matter what the specific cause of the hip problems that you suffer.

While you may not be able to completely cure hip pain, there are ways to make life more pleasant for yourself. I have even been able to jog occasionally after being told I might not ever be able to run again, so know that everybody is very different and there is no such thing as an absolute when it comes to a diagnosis for chronic pain.

This is the single most important thing I can tell you, learn to pay attention to your body. Most times, when we’re healthy, we go through life ignoring all our little aches and pains. This is very bad and can sometimes be what leads to more severe injuries. If you have a persistent ache or pain in a knee or ankle, for example, this could be a sign that your hips are misaligned. A chiropractor could possibly help you with this.

But if you simply gulp down some Tylenol and chalk it up to aging and keep going, you could do legitimate long term damage. So the most important thing to do to remedy your pain is to pay attention to what your body is telling you via pain, not to always drown it out with pain reliever. This is a particular lie that commercials love to tell you, just pop a pill and keep doing what you were doing. It’s the wrong way to keep your hips and joints healthy.

Keep track of the specific details of your hip pain. Does it hurt when you get in and out of cars, when you stretch, walk, or jog? Is it a specific movement or a constant ache? Write these things down and share them with your doctor as soon as possible.

Also, the good old combination of heat and cold can help you greatly. Invest in a sturdy ice pack and heat pack. Make sure to buy two so you can alternate them. My therapist always told me, heat for ten minutes, ice for ten minutes and repeat that cycle two or three times on whatever area is hurting. It did wonders for me. However, do not ever sit an ice pack on bare skin and don’t accidentally burn yourself with the heat pack. (You’d be surprised how often this happens; my sister works in a doctor’s office and sees it frequently.)

Also, ibuprofen is an excellent bet for pain, but make sure to use it in conjunction with other therapies. Hot showers are very calming as well, and it’s important not to focus on the pain so much that you get stressed out. When I was first diagnosed, I had to use crutches at one point and felt like it was the end of the world. I got so worked up that I cried all the time and became mildly depressed. Don’t let yourself sink into this kind of behavior. Start learning what you can do to help instead of feeling sorry for yourself; your attitude does make a difference in your pain level. So become active in treating yourself and find ways to stay encouraged despite the pain.

I would also recommend that you research food and drink that contains anti-inflammatory properties. There are lots of foods and beverages that you can simply pick up at the grocery store and add to your regular diet that will aid in the swelling of the muscles around your hips when you are having pain.

Learn to do things in a new way. Silly as it sounds, learn a new way to sit down in the car or get up and down from a chair. Making small adjustments in your every day movements will significantly decrease your hip pain over time. It’s simple; make whatever changes you have to in these daily activities that make them easier and more comfortable for you. Don’t ever force yourself to move in a way that hurts. It’s likely just causing more damage.

Treat yourself to at least one monthly massage. A good full body massage can relax the rest of the muscles in your body, making them more able to take more of the load off of whatever ways you need to adjust to hip pain. If you have hip problems, you know how linked the body is. Take care of it as a whole and your isolated pain will decrease significantly.

This last one has been very important for me personally and if you didn’t read anything else helpful in this article, please pay attention to this. Learn what your healthiest weight is and keep yourself within a few pounds of that number in either direction. Extra weight or being overweight when you have hip problems in specific, and joint problems in general, greatly exacerbates your symptoms. I can literally tell the difference in my hip pain when I have five to ten extra pounds on my body over my highest healthy weight.

This is just another part of getting to know yourself and your body. Hip pain decreases significantly with healthy weight loss. The best ways to lose weight without being able to do high impact cardio would be through diet changes, swimming, Pilates, yoga, and other low impact exercises. Learn to eat healthy and focus on toning, and your hips will hurt less and less than they would if you were still trying to exercise the way you did pre-hip problems.

Hip pain can be horribly distracting and very stressful. I know, I’ve been there and go back there often. But everyone has something in life that slows them down and you can learn to live with this. I have found that with hip problems, the most simple and no nonsense strategies have helped the most. Just like everything else in life, there are no easy answers or short cuts and I would highly recommend that you avoid harsh pain medications. But eventually you’ll find a new rhythm and get back to your normal life. I have and I actually take better care of myself now than I did pre-diagnosis. So there is a silver lining.