How to understand what hurts the hip joint: an orthopedist told about simple home tests

Pain in the hip joint is easily confused with discomfort in the lower back or hip and because of this, postpone a visit to the doctor or treat the wrong thing. Meanwhile, it is the nature of the pain, its localization and accompanying symptoms that help to suspect a problem with the joint and start dealing with the cause in time. Russian orthopedic doctor Ivan Eremin told how to understand that the hip joint hurts, writes sb.by.

According to Ivan Yermin, the hip joint does not hurt where it is - the pain gives to the groin, knee, lower back. Therefore, people can treat the back or knee for years, while the joint loses mobility.

- Cartilage has no nerve endings, so pain appears when the cartilage is already small and the bone takes over the load. What seems to be the beginning of the disease, on X-rays often turns out to be stage 2-3 arthrosis. Half of the patients who came for joint replacement could come earlier or do without surgery - they just didn't know what to check.

Ivan Eremin told about the home tests that you need to pass to understand what hurts the hip joint:

1. Internal rotation (lying on your back). Bend your leg in your knee and hip joint at right angles. Keep your knee in place, take your foot inside. Remember how far the foot goes. Repeat with your other foot. Look not at the degrees, but at the difference between the sides. If one leg turns worse, this is the first signal. In the early stages of osteoarthritis, it is the internal rotation that is limited to the first - long before pain.

2. Tossing the foot on the leg (sitting on a chair). Sit on a chair, place the ankle of one leg on the knee of the other. See three things: whether the leg lies at all; how high the knee sticks out of the thrown leg; whether it pulls into the groin. Repeat with your other foot. If the knee of one leg sticks out much higher, or the leg does not throw, or pulls into the groin - this is the second signal.

3. Standing on one leg (at the mirror). Lift one leg, bend your knee, and stand on the other for 20 seconds. Ask someone to look at you or look in the mirror. The pelvis must remain flat. If the pelvis from the side of the raised leg sags down or you are swamped with the body towards the supporting leg - the muscles holding the joint are weakened. Repeat with your other foot. This checks not the joint itself, but the balance of the hip joints.

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