Hip Pain Relief

You want hip pain relief?

It's like this.

Have you every had to have the wheels of your car re-aligned. What you may have noticed is the tread on one side is worn more than the tread on the other.

Rotating the tyres might stave off the inevitable for a while, particularly if you notice it early enough.

However rotating the tyres is pretty much like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's not going to work for long and you'll just wear out another tyre quicker than normal.

Obviously you need a wheel alignment and you need to balance the wheels.

Lao Tzu said something to the effect that a big problem could have been solved easily when it was a small problem.

As with your tyres, so with your hips.

The sooner you can get them realigned the better.

The problem with hip dysfunction is that it creeps up on you without you noticing it. You feel a bit of a niggle and think it's transitory, it will go away.

It doesn't and it gradually gets worse. You finally get to the point where you have to do something about it. You rub some cr癡me into it. You go to the physio for a rub down, some palpation, the hot pad, vibration and the electric shock treatment. Problem is your hip pain is not caused by a lack of rub down, palpation, heat treatment, vibration or an electric shock t. It's caused by misalignment of your pelvis which in turn is caused by weak and tight muscles somewhere in your lower body.

But first, diagnose the cause of the problem - what's weak, what's tight and what's out of alignment.

For starters, if you can get a couple of digital scales (and you can pick them up for about $20 these days) and stand on them you may find that you're lop-sided. You're carrying more weight on one side of your body than the other.

A diagnostic posture I'd recommend is the sit-up-straight exercise - designed to let you know whether one buttock muscle is tighter than the other. If it is your body will be twisted putting more pressure on one hip than the other.

You may also find that one hamstring is tighter then the other. Again this will cause the pelvis to twist, putting more pressure on one hip than the other.

You may find that your hip flexor muscles and your quadriceps muscles are weak.

You may find that your legs are out of alignment. Maybe you find it difficult to get your knees together when your ankles are together; or you're knock-kneed.

Take a look at your feet, if they're not straight and about 10cms apart (4 inches) when standing, you can bet the misalignment goes right up to your knees and hips.

In a nutshell, when all this is happening for years on end, sooner or later the misalignment will become so bad you'll experience hip pain. The ends of the bones start to grind on each other. Then you get bone inflammation - arthritis.

If you have an X-ray the radiologist will be able to see the arthritis. They'll say that it is the arthritis that is causing your pain, pretty much useless information because you know that. What you want to know is what's caused the arthritis and what you can do about it.

Certainly your hip is not going to get better in a surgery or a pharmacy. Junk medicine - that is, taking drugs to mask the pain will only see the hip deteriorate further -but without you noticing it. It's just a vapid way to deal with musculo-skeletal dysfunction. It achieves nothing. It just puts off the inevitable.

Give it a few years and you'll need a hip replacement. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

So, based on what I've already explained, the task ahead is to get your body back into better alignment.

The good news is that if you want hip pain relief, start doing the right exercises. You could make a big difference to your alignment and take pressure off the hip that is hurting.

The aim is to restore poor function to good.

There's quite a few exercises you'll need to do, some general and some specific. I recommend you start doing them while you're watching TV. Plus you can't go past a good strength training program in the gym. Spending $700 on a gym membership is going to save you thousands and thousands of dollars in hospital fees and four week of agony spent staring at the ceiling.

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and remember, it's easier to solve small problems than big problems.

John Miller