Hip Joint Injections

While your shoulders provide the functionality and wide range of motion your arms need, your hips help you maintain your balance and mobility. Since they’re weight-bearing joints, your hips have to be strong but well-lubricated to allow your legs to move without pain or friction. The system of muscles, ligaments, tendons, and nerves that pass through your hips allows you to do everything from balancing on one leg to running and jumping at full speed.

Hip pain from a medical condition like tendonitis or an injury to your hip makes your life agonizing. As with back pain, a sore hip hurts no matter what position you try — sitting, standing or lying down. If over-the-counter non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) don’t help, you need to see your pain management specialist to find out what treatment options are available.

Diagnosing Your Pain

A cortisone injection in the hip is one way to treat the pain you’re experiencing, but it’s usually not the go-to cure your doctor recommends. In fact, the very first step toward effective treatment is always the initial consultation visit. When you come into the Sports and Pain Institute of NY, the physician you meet:

Conducts a thorough physical examination
Asks you about your medical history
Maybe even orders imaging tests, such as an x-ray or MRI

The goal of your doctor is to arrive at an accurate diagnosis. Even if the cause of your pain seems clear, your physician has to rule out underlying conditions, like a labral tear.
Once the cause of your pain is known, your doctor often recommends conservative, non-invasive treatments, such as:

Rest
Alternating ice and heat
Over-the-counter pain medicine
Physical therapy

Time for a Hip Steroid Injection

If those treatment options don’t work, a injection may be the next alternative to try. Hip injections deliver anti-inflammatory steroidal medication and a local anesthetic right into your hip where it hurts. A cortisone injection in the hip:

Relieves your pain instantly, due to the local anesthetic
Begins to reduce the inflammation in your hip
Allows your body to begin to heal faster because it’s not fighting the pain all the time
Requires a couple days to take full effect
Last up to three months
Is virtually risk-free
Has been used for decades to relieve joint pain
Is a painless procedure itself

Your experienced pain specialist may need to inject the steroid medicine in multiple spots to adequately surround the painful area in your hips. You most likely need to lie on an x-ray table during the procedure so your doctor can use a fluoroscope to guide the position of the needle. But the injection spot is numbed with a topical anesthetic before the procedure begins, so you won’t feel much of anything.

Hip Injections’ Risks and Side Effects

Because there are so many ways to hurt your hip, from blunt force trauma to slow-developing arthritis, a injection can’t cure every condition all the time. It’s possible it won’t work on you. But it’s been so successful in treating hip pain that it’s worth the rare risk.

Side effects are uncommon with a hip steroid injection, but possible risks and side effects include:

A warm feeling from the injected area
An infection at the injection spot
Steroid crystallization inside your joint from too many hip injections
Damage to the cartilage of your hip bones
Damage to a nerve or tendon
Osteoporosis
No noticeable effect in pain levels
A temporary spike in blood sugar levels

After Your Cortisone Injection in the Hip

Normally, you just need to take it easy for the rest of the day. After the local anesthetic in the hip steroid injection wears off, usually within three hours, your pain may return. But once the medication starts to work, often within three days, your pain levels drop dramatically. Follow your New York City physician’s post-injection care instructions to minimize the risks and promote the effectiveness of the procedure.

If you develop a fever, contact your doctor right away. Keep the injection spot clean and dry to avoid infection, which is the most common risk. Don’t exert yourself until you feel the steroid medicine start to work. Even then, you need to give your body time to heal, so don’t rush back onto the court or playing field. If you do, you risk injuring yourself again.

Febin Melepura, MD is a top rated, best in class interventional pain management doctor. He is a nationally recognized pain relief specialist and is among the top pain care doctors in New York City and the country. He is an award winning expert and contributor to a prominent media outlets.

Dr. Febin Melepura has been recognized for his thoughtful, thorough, modern approach to treating chronic pain and, among other accolades, has been named a “top pain management doctor in New York”, and one of “America’s Top Doctors™” for an advanced sports injury treatments.