Has anyone successfully gotten hip bursitis under control? I've had a couple of MRIs showing bilateral hip bursitis (MRIs were for different matters, and that just happened to show up) and usually it is mild and under control. Then I will have a flare up on one side or another, for no reason that I can pinpoint. There is no pain at all when I run. The pain comes later in the day after a period of sitting. Ice gives mild temporary relief and stretching has no effect at all. I've tried total rest and I've tried cutting back to just running three days a week, with no change. I"m extremely frustrated since I don't know what is causing it.
I have a long history of overtraining and injuring myself (before I found this wonderful group of people to set me straight on adequate training) but that is just not the case this time. Has anyone else experienced this who can give any tips?
Hip Redux
The only thing I can relate is my sister's story - she was having chronic hip bursitis...had cortisone shots, total rest, ice etc. and nothing was helping. Her doctor recommended cutting out foods known to cause inflammation (like wheat, corn, etc) and she is feeling great. She said it was the first time in a long time she'd actually been pain free.
running is bad for you
Have you done PT to strengthen the muscles around it?
I have bursitis in my shoulder and the cortisone shot did nothing. I couldn't even empty the dishwasher without pain. I wasn't really disciplined to do PT but I started swimming (for other reasons). It was really achy at first and I could only do a lap or two so the rest of the time I would just go back and forth with the kickboard. A few months later, my shoulders are stronger than ever and I don't have any bursa pain.
So like Oski, not exactly an answer to your question but a possible suggestion.
Good luck.
Interestingly, I just got an email back from an older friend of mine who was almost crippled with hip bursitis and she said something similar...for her, eliminating grains made all the difference. I don't at all understand how that works but apparently for some people it does.
Basically, your body's reaction to grains can result in increasing amounts of inflammatory proteins floating around in your bloodstream, which can lead to joint pain, etc. There's actually a bit of research out there on this, but not really well understood. It's an easy thing to try though, and certainly is better than cortisone shots and other high strength anti-inflammatories in terms of potential side effects.
Just after I first started running I developed bursitis in my right hip. It started after a very long car trip. It was enormously painful but I always noticed that the pain was intense for the first half mile and then faded. My doctor told me that running wouldn't make it worse but it would take longer to heal. Well, I was tired of being fat so I decided I could tolerate the pain for half a mile each time, I lived with it for nearly two years before it finally went away.
I have now lived with a painful left hamstring for over two years. I'm just willing to put up with those things because I don't want to be fat again and I know damn good and well I would be if I didn't keep running.
Short term goal: 17:59 5K
Mid term goal: 2:54:59 marathon
Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life. (I started running at age 45).
I was offered the shot but decided against it and instead focused on strengthening the surrounding muscles and improving my balance. I still have discomfort but it is not the debilitating pain it once was.
Oddly, my pain has nothing to do with running and in fact is sometimes at its worse when I stand or walk for long periods.
For me, it's a process and I have accepted that it may take some time to get it right, but I do believe that ultimately I will.
Today is my sixth day with minimal wheat. I'm not going hard core wheat free....just testing cutting back for three weeks as an experiment. I stopped eating cereal, bread and pasta but still have residual wheat in other things and an occasional piece of pizza. As of around day four, the pain in my hips had decreased tremendously even while I was increasing my mileage again. Now, that could very well be a coincidence, that my hips finally (after about two months of pain this time around) healed around the same time I changed my diet, but I'm going to stick with it for three weeks and see how I feel. It seems hard to believe that something so simple could make such a difference.