Advances in Mental Health

Trochanteric bursitis can be a difficult condition to manage. The pain that it causes on the outside of your hip can start radiating around your hip, making it difficult to walk, let alone run or participate in sports. Often, once this issue starts plaguing you, it sticks around for months, even if you take the classic healing steps like icing and stretching the area. However, there is hope. People often find that seeing a chiropractor helps them get over their trochanteric bursitis. Here are two ways a chiropractor can help alleviate this painful swelling of the hip.

Adjusting the Hip Joint

The hip is a ball and socket joint, meaning that it consists of the end of one bone — your femur — resting inside the socket of another bone — your pelvis. There are a series of connective tissues that hold the ball of your hip inside the socket. If one of these tendons or ligaments becomes elongated or compressed, that will affect the way your hip sits in the pelvic joint, which can cause it to rub on the bursae. This rubbing, in turn, causes or worsens your trochanteric bursitis.

A chiropractor can feel which connective tissues are tight and which are loose. They can then manipulate these tissues and your hip joint in general in order to realign the way your hip sits within the socket. This adjustment can relieve pressure on your bursa, which can allow that bursa to finally heal.

Adjusting the Spine

Of course, spinal adjustments are the bread and butter of a chiropractor's profession. But this sort of adjustment can do more than relieve back pain. If your back is out of alignment, you may stand to one side or favor one leg. And that can cause additional strain on one hip, leading to trochanteric bursitis. If your chiropractor adjusts your back so you can stand up straighter, this can take the pressure off your sore hip and allow it to heal.

Runners, especially, tend to benefit from spinal adjustments. Putting in lots of miles with a misaligned spine is hard on the hips. An adjustment makes for better running form that can take some strain off the hips.

Trochanteric bursitis can be stubborn, but seeing a chiropractor is often an important step toward healing. Remember to also take it easy, rest, and ease your way back into exercise for the best results. Your chiropractor can likely give you more tips and advice. 

For more info, contact a local clinic like Avors Medical Group.