The Ultimate Guide to Treating Hip Bursitis at Home – No Needles Required!

ah hey guys Dr christianis if you've got hip bursitis like I did then you know the agony of that dramatic reenactment and I'm going to show you the steps that I took to get myself out of it starting right in bed now that you're no longer smooshing that area we're going to work on some self massage and you have multiple muscles in the hip that actually attach right where that yucky pain is around that greater trochanter so what we are going to do is gently massage those because a lot of times these muscles right here get nice and tight and then push and compress right onto those Bursa right which are those nice little fluid-filled sacks that attach or surround that Bursa so notice I'm just doing some really gentle pressure on some specific muscles which I'll show you but you don't need to worry about that really know you know that your pain is here so we're just going right around that area and it'll probably feel pretty darn tight to you I actually happen to keep a Derma Edge right on my nightstand for areas and issues just like this because I got a lot of them so I tend to use this but you can use your hand if you need to so again kind of the side of the hip the front of the hip and then we're going into the back of that hip a little bit too even into those bunsies and you're just doing it until it feels like a little bit less tension there if you're anything like me you're going to want to actually go back to sleep so now that you're hopefully a little bit more comfortable we're going to talk about some positions so we already know we don't want to lie on that side usually the back's pretty good but if you go and roll on the other side you actually want to make sure you have a little pillow because if you don't my leg is like this and now I'm actually stretching one of those muscles that's pretty not happy about it and actually puts pressure back on that area again so to prevent that leg from kind of dropping down if you take a lovely little pillow put it right in between your knees right now my leg is doing this instead of dropping down so I'm going to wake up now and we're going to go right into that seated position another one that I see people do very often think about that same thing it's crossing their leg so now you're going back into what we call that adduction and this is again kind of pulling and going to push pressure right through there so you want to sit with those legs uncrossed with lovely posture and then lastly from a standing standpoint if you need to a lot of times standing actually does cause discomfort so you want to make sure you're not doing the sassy hip thing right by sticking your hip out and putting weight all on one side because it's common for us to just kind of hang there if it's really bad and I have had some patients need to use a cane just temporarily so they take some pressure and you would use that cane in the side opposite of the pain so if it's my left side I would use that cane in my right hand besides this lovely ah good morning stretch you actually do not let me repeat that do not want to stretch that hip it probably feels tight but just like I showed you with crossing your legs if you go into that traditional kind of figure four stretch or Whoop I'm gonna switch it around right this is the common one or this other one where you're going over like this that's exactly the position I just told you that will put more stress right into that area so please while this is irritated don't stretch once you've loosened those muscles up a little bit and you're avoiding those things that really cause it pain we do want to work on some strength and I'm still in bed so we're going to do our first strengthening exercise lying down so another common cause my bed is getting dirty another common cause of that pain is actually weakness in some of those muscles too so I'm going to start off by doing a bridge which to do this one properly you're going to do a little bit of a pelvic tuck keep your hands pressed down by your side and then squeeze into those buns as you lift up now this is working those glute muscles it's also working some of those lateral hip muscles a little to help stabilize us but in a little bit more of a gentle way instead of just isolating them which as we're really sore in the beginning it's much more comfortable to do exercises like this now if this one feels okay you can go right from here so we're going to lift it on up again and then you can add a little pull apart with those knees keeping those hips up so we're getting a little bit more into those outside hip muscles so if this one is too painful to start you just start with that bridge this would be kind of the little next progression here and you want to shoot for about 15 to 20 exercise two is a wall slide so standing with your back against the wall you're literally sliding down that wall now just be aware that it can take some time before you're able to get to even this point it took me a good week before I was able to do any real standing exercises so we're using some of those big leg muscles not as much of these side muscles but those are engaging a little bit because they're helping to stabilize us so Bridge first followed by this wall slide again about 15 to 20 reps if you can progressing to not actually working these muscles a little bit more we are going to step it to the side so literally it's just this but what you want to be careful of is that you're not doing what I call the penguin or I don't know some weird random dance maybe the Elaine right sort of so keeping those hips forward those feet forward and taking nice big steps that you lean a little or excuse me I should say oh no no don't lean that you shift a little but don't lean and if you want to make this a little bit harder you can go ahead and put a band around the legs to add a little bit of extra resistance next exercise in this set we are going to use a band standing so that you have a little bit of support shifting your weight onto one side not leaning and we're going to take this leg that's hurting us or hopefully not hurting so much anymore and we're bringing it out to the side again remember if this does hurt you don't want to do it yet go back to those other steps so keeping that foot forward I've got my leg behind just a touch so I'm really activating right in here now you can do this on the other leg too but just know that if you're putting all your weight on that side this side is working as well as this one but this sometimes can be a little bit painful right in the beginning so this is a little bit more of a progression to actually do standing on this leg and moving the one that doesn't cause discomfort our last tier of exercises are actually going to be side lying so when you this is my right injured one or not anymore but the one that was I am going to roll forward onto this hip when I look down I should see my feet and probably not much of my leg so if you see a lot of your leg your l