What causes hip pain

The most common sources we see: sacroiliac joint dysfunction — the two large joints where your pelvis meets your spine lose normal motion and become painful, often after pregnancy, a fall, or years of uneven loading; gluteal tendinopathy and bursitis on the side of the hip, an overload injury of the tendons that stabilize your pelvis with every step; hip-joint osteoarthritis, the gradual wearing of joint cartilage, producing groin pain and stiffness, especially with rotation; hip impingement and labral irritation in younger, active people; and referred pain from the lumbar spine, where an irritated nerve or restricted segment sends pain into the buttock and hip region.

These sources also interact. A restricted SI joint changes how the hip joint loads; a stiff hip forces the low back to move more than it should; weak, inhibited glutes overload the lateral tendons. That's why hips, pelvis, and lumbar spine are evaluated together in our office — always.

How we evaluate it at Vitality Chiropractic

Your examination is built to separate the possible sources: orthopedic testing of the hip joint itself (range of motion, impingement and labral provocation tests), palpation and motion testing of both SI joints, resisted testing of the gluteal tendons, and a full lumbar spine and pelvic assessment — plus gait analysis, because how you walk usually tells the story of how the problem developed. In our clinical model, restricted joint motion in the pelvis and spine affecting muscle and nerve function — vertebral subluxation — is the pattern we're trained to detect, and it frequently sits underneath hip pain that has resisted hip-only treatment. Thermal scanning and HRV give us objective baselines, and digital X-rays of the pelvis and lumbar spine, when clinically indicated, show us joint spacing, alignment, and arthritic change directly.

What care looks like

Care is matched to the actual source. SI joint dysfunction responds to specific pelvic adjusting to restore joint motion, supported by our postural vibration plate and targeted glute re-activation. Gluteal tendinopathy is where SoftWave therapy shines — chronic tendon tissue is exactly what acoustic wave treatment is designed to stimulate — combined with Avant laser for inflammation and a progressive loading program. Arthritic hips can't be given new cartilage, and we won't pretend otherwise; what conservative care can honestly do is restore motion to the joints around the hip, reduce inflammation, strengthen support musculature, and often meaningfully reduce pain and delay or avoid more invasive steps. Lumbar-referred cases are treated at the spine, where the problem actually lives. Every plan is written, with re-evaluations against your baseline.

When chiropractic first makes sense — and when we refer

Mechanical hip, pelvic, and spine-referred pain are squarely appropriate for conservative care first. We refer to orthopedics when examination and imaging show advanced osteoarthritis that has stopped responding to conservative measures, suspected labral tears needing advanced imaging, unexplained night pain or history that raises red flags, or any suspicion of fracture — including stress fractures in runners, which must not be loaded. In children and adolescents, hip pain gets prompt referral for specific conditions we screen for. If your case belongs with a surgeon, you'll hear it from us directly.