Hip Pain and Associated Signs and Symptoms
Hip pain is a symptom and not a diagnosis by itself. There are plenty of causes of hip pain, but most of them follow one of these patterns:
- Anterior hip pain: Hip pain is located on the inside of the hip, which happens when the hip joint is affected. This is known as anterior hip pain, and it is sometimes reported in the groin area.
- Lateral and posterior hip pain: Hip pain located on the outside of the hip or close to your buttocks. This is known as lateral or posterior hip pain, respectively. The cause is usually due to damage to tendons, muscles, ligaments, or nerves. This is the most common type of hip pain, and it is sometimes caused by overuse injuries. Even walking too much or sprinting for a long time can cause pain outside the hip, but this is often the least severe type of hip pain.
Thus, the first recommendation to describe your symptoms is to locate the source of pain as precisely as possible. It is sometimes difficult, especially when hip pain comes from nerve entrapment problems and radiates to a wide area instead of concentrating in the same spot.
Besides the location of pain, it is also important to describe to your doctor the type of pain you’re feeling. In a nutshell, you have two types of pain according to their intensity and timing.