Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome or GTPS for short is pain on the outside of your hip on our around that bony bump on the outside of your hip. Pain may also radiate down the outside of your thighs.
GTPS can make it hard to walk. It can be painful to sleep on that side. You may hear or feel clicking on that side of your hip.
You may find that getting out of a chair or bed to make it worse. Walking up stairs can make the pain worse and as I said earlier sleeping or lying on the affected side can be very painful.
Basically, GTPS is a real pain in the butt AND it can seriously decrease your quality of life.
GTPS is caused by irritation and inflammation of the tendons that attach onto that bony bump on the side of your hip (called the Greater Trochanter).
GTPS has many potential causes including:
Overuse or stress on the hip from exercising or standing for long periods
Hip injury, such as from a fall
Being overweight
Having one leg that is longer than the other
Bone spurs on the hip
Arthritis of the hip, knee, or foot
Painful problems of the foot, such as a bunion, callas, plantar fasciitis, or Achilles tendon pain
Spine problems, including scoliosis and arthritis of the spine
Muscle imbalance that puts more stress around the hip muscles
Tear in a buttocks muscle
Well, that’s what it is. Now what do you do about it?
Radial Shockwave has been shown to reduce the pain of GTPS and improve the function of the hip. The following data is from research published in 2009.
In one month, the pain from GTPS went from 8.5/10 to 5.1. After 3 months pain score went down to 3.7 and after 12 months the pain score decreased to 2.7 / 10.
This is particularly interesting because treatment only lasts about a month, so the pain continued to decrease well after the treatment had ended.
If you are dealing with pain on the outside of your hip and you would like some help with it, I would like to help you. We have a Radial Shockwave device in our office and we are having really good results with a number of different conditions, including hip pain.
Another nice thing about the shockwave device is that treatments are spaced about 1 week apart verses chiropractic adjustments needing 2-3 treatments per week.
Treatment time is still pretty low . . . about 10-20 minutes.
At the end of the day, the most important thing is for you to get the pain-relief that you need so that you can get back to doing the things that bring you joy.
When you are ready for that relief, call our office at (417) 598-0080 or better yet just schedule an appointment online by clicking the button below (that is the quickest and easiest way to make an appointment)
God Bless You!
Dr. Tim
1. Low-energy extracorporeal shock wave therapy as a treatment for greater trochanteric pain syndrome. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19439756/
2. Greater trochanteric pain syndrome. https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000777.htm
This information should not be substituted for medical or chiropractic advice. Any and all health care concerns, decisions, and actions must be done through the advice and counsel of a health care professional who is familiar with your updated medical history.
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