Client Case Study: How Marsha Put an End to Her Hip Pain

Running is an active hobby that refreshes your mind and improves your overall wellbeing. It can boost your cardiovascular health, help you get back in shape and keep you energetic the whole day.

But sometimes, running can also prove to be a source of injuries and pain. A lot of people avoid active running and discard their goals related to competitive running because of joint pains and injuries.

You should never let go of your passion for running because of pain and injuries. It is very much possible to tackle joint pains when you take the right treatment fueled by proper knowledge and care. Back In Motion Physical Therapy & Performance can help you find the right way to get back in form and enjoy pain-free running. Here is the story of how Marsha was able to put an end to her chronic hip pain when running.

Marsha’s Story

Marsha is an avid runner and is passionate about competitive running. As with any sport, competitive running takes a lot of effort, dedication and hours of practice to build up the stamina and muscle strength required.

And as running can be a vigorous activity that puts a lot of stress on leg and hip muscles and joints, injuries and joint pain are quite common among runners. Hip muscles, in particular, easily become tight. This makes them lose flexibility when under pressure, and thus they become more prone to stress-related pain and injuries.

Marsha too felt the pain build up in her hip area, and over time, the pain only kept getting worse.

Marsha was not ready to give up on running yet because of her hip pain. She tried a lot of treatment options. She tried seeing her MD and a few other physical therapists and could not find a viable solution to her hip pain.

Without prior specialized knowledge, it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact cause and provide accurate treatment to deal with it. And that’s what Back In Motion was able to provide to Marsha: specialized care, unlike the generalist approach she had received before.

Good for Marsha, as she did not stop searching. She knew something out there could help her and she had to see a specialist. Though hesitant at first, Marsha contacted Back In Motion hoping it would help. She soon found she was in the right place right from her first appointment.

Evaluation

Back In Motion has its own diagnosis and treatment process called The Gray Method™, named after its founder, Dr. Scott Gray.

It starts with a general evaluation and then expands to a specialized evaluation to reach an accurate diagnosis. The method does not stop with the diagnosis but digs deeper to find the exact root cause of the condition.

The thing with muscle and joint injuries is that they can be caused by different incidents or physical conditions. Hip pain could be caused by anything from a muscle strain, tendonitis, cartilage tears, hip pointers, IT band syndrome, arthritis and fractures.

In Marsha’s case, it was lateral gluteal tendinopathy.

Tendinopathy refers to the degradation or breakdown of the relevant tendon. Marsha’s lateral hip tendon was damaged, and that was the reason she couldn’t run as freely as she wanted to.

Fixing the Cause

After the extensive evaluation process, we found that Marsha’s pain was due to overloading of her hip tendon. This happened because her gluteal muscles were weak.

The treatment was designed to help her strengthen her gluteal muscles and make way for her hip tendon to heal properly. Stretching exercises of the antagonistic muscles and exercises to strengthen the lateral hips were prescribed.

Tendon injuries can be tricky to deal with. They are often linked to a limited blood supply to the tendon tissue. Their health depends on movement, as they receive their nutrition from muscle contractions and loading.

So, resting the muscles is not going to heal them. In the same way, overworking them can injure them more. Neither underloading nor overloading the hip will make it any better. That’s why tendon injuries need careful examination and a close watch on progress, so the treatment keeps pace with the healing.

We designed specialized exercises focused on strengthening the hip muscles while giving enough mobility to let Marsha keep running. We used a logical progression of low load and higher repetitions, building toward exercises that mimicked Marsha’s favorite sport, running.

By identifying and dealing with the root cause of the hip problem, the muscle weakness, we were able to help keep the hip pain from coming back under the same circumstances.

The End Result

After about 6 weeks of skilled physical therapy and care, Marsha is now back to running pain-free and has set personal records.

If you’re a runner dealing with hip pain, see how our running injury treatment works, and read about hip bursitis, which is often confused with gluteal tendinopathy.

Get Back to Running Without Hip Pain

Are you dealing with a similar problem? We can help. Our hip pain treatment in Fort Myers starts with The Gray Method™, one-on-one with a Doctor of Physical Therapy at our clinics in Fort Myers, Cape Coral and Estero.

Start with our Fixing the Cause & Not Just the Symptoms Assessment, or Inquire About an Appointment →

Call our office at (239) 223-0484 to schedule your appointment.