Hip arthrosis means you get hurt from the groin area as you move. You get less mobility in the hip as the cartilage and joint surface change and thinning. Cartilage is a type of tissue that allows the bones of the skeleton to slide against each other. It gives the load and distributes the load evenly in the joint. Hip arthritis is one of the most common joint diseases.
Osteoarthritis develops slowly. In the final stage, the cartilage in the joint may have completely disappeared. Sometimes the pain and reduced mobility mean that you may need surgery for a joint prosthesis. It is not uncommon to get osteoarthritis in both hips, but the complications usually do not come simultaneously.
Symptoms of hip arthrosis
The symptoms of hip arthrosis are staggering and often go on for many years. For long periods of time, you can feel completely free from the hassle and in between feel the onset of symptoms of hip arthrosis.
For starters, it is common for you to get hurt when you physically exert yourself:
- You get sore groin or upper thigh.
- You get pain around the knee and lower leg as the pain often radiates from the hip.
Over time, your troubles increase. Then you may have the following symptoms of hip arthrosis:
- You get sore hip when standing or walking.
- You get stiffer in the hip.
- You get temporary pain when you start walking after sitting or lying still so-called startup pain.
- You get hurt when you sit or lie down and your leg is at rest. It usually only comes after you have had osteoarthritis for a long time.
You gradually become stiffer and the aches increase as the osteoarthritis continues to develop. It becomes harder to walk naturally and eventually you can get hurt even when you rest and at night. You can also get back pain or around the knee and also down the lower leg.
To have pain around the hip and groin does not have to be hip arthritis. Sometimes pain in the hip and in the groin may be due to irritated muscle attachments. Pain in the groin and down the leg can for example also come from the lumbar or stomach.
When and where should I seek care?
Contact a physiotherapist at your health care center if you have pain and feel rigid around the hip and are unsure what it is due to, or if you suspect it is due to hip arthritis.
Surveys
You usually get to see a physiotherapist or a doctor at the health center. You can describe your problems and then examine the mobility of the back, hip joints, and knees. Your doctor or physiotherapist will determine if the inconvenience is caused by osteoarthritis.
When the disease is at an early stage, osteoarthritis is usually not visible on an X-ray examination. You may have symptoms of hip arthrosis for ten to fifteen years before a regular X-ray can reveal the disease. It is therefore uncommon for you to X-ray your hip when you first contact your health care provider. The diagnosis is made by describing the problems and by examination. An X-ray examination may delay the start of treatment.
You may need surgery if you get worse in the hip and if you still have pain after treatment with physical therapy, exercise training, and information. Then you need to have an x-ray examination of the hip joint. Only in exceptional cases can you need a magnetic camera examination, MR.
Treatment of hip arthrosis
There are many reasons why you may have osteoarthritis, some of which are unknown. With the treatment of hip arthrosis, you want to give individual advice on how to best treat and prevent the problems of hip arthritis.
Training relieves the joint
Most people with mild osteoarthritis can relieve them with self-care. You can influence how the disease develops and how you feel by learning how to live with your osteoarthritis. There is good help from physiotherapists, who can also increasingly contact osteoarthritis schools. There you can learn both how to exercise and what else you can do to make your hip joint work as well as possible. Studies show that many who think an operation is a necessity to change after undergoing arthritis school. There are also digital arthritis schools.
Physiotherapy for mild discomfort
It is important that you contact a physiotherapist as soon as you start getting hip problems. You can get exercise advice to increase your fitness and improve your muscle strength, function, and mobility in the hip. You also get advice on how you can in other ways reduce the load on the hip joint, for example by losing weight or using a cane or stick when walking. You should have the stick on the opposite side to the side where you are in pain. Then the trail is relieved in a good way.
It is important to find a good balance between movement and rest and not sit still for long moments without having to travel from time to time. For example, you can get good shoes with cushioning soles, find nice resting positions and meet a dietician to get dietary advice. All of these small changes in everyday life can each help reduce your inconvenience by making your hip joint feel better and more reasonable.
The cartilage in the hip joint feels good to be stressed regularly. It is not dangerous to move and exercise even if it hurts. On the contrary, you feel better, and sometimes you can be so good that you want to postpone an operation.
If you know that osteoarthritis is present in the genus, it may be especially important to think about prevention and start treatment of hip arthrosis early. You can reduce the risks to some extent by avoiding extreme stress on the hip joints at work and at leisure. It is also good that you move and are physically active to strengthen muscles and joints. Sometimes you may need to take painkillers. But exercise works just as well against the pain as painkillers and also does not produce any side effects.
It is good to get started with self-care early, although you can sometimes get worse when exercising. If you eventually need an operation, you are also better prepared if you are in good shape. When you get sore there is a risk that you take out minor movements in the hip joint. As a result, mobility decreases and you gradually take shorter steps, become stiffer and get hurt with smaller and smaller movements. You should, therefore, try to maintain mobility in the hip joint, even if it hurts to exercise mobility. The training does not damage the joint and does not make the operation more complicated. You also feel much better and get started faster after an operation if you are well trained.
Osteoarthritis Schools
In more and more parts of the country, physiotherapists now run so-called osteoarthritis schools. There you get together with other information about osteoarthritis and advice on how to reduce the load on the hip joint with simple means. You also get help getting started with appropriate training. A visit to an arthritis school usually costs as much as a regular visit to a physical therapist. Your local health center can refer you to your nearest arthritis school.
You can get help through an online arthritis school if there is no physiotherapist or arthritis school in the locality where you live. You can look in the so-called BOA register, which is a national quality register for people with osteoarthritis.
You may need painkillers
You can sometimes have such a pain in the hip joint that it feels uncomfortable to touch. Then it may be wise to relieve the pain with painkillers before exercise. At the pharmacy, there are non-prescription drugs containing the painkiller paracetamol. These drugs usually have small side effects if used according to the instructions and can make a big difference in how it hurts when you want to move.
Hip arthritis is a disease that goes into the woods, which means you can sometimes have trouble and pain and sometimes feel considerably less trouble. In case of pain, you can take painkillers regularly in the morning and evening, or morning, noon and evening, so that it does not hurt. There is currently no medicine that will make you healthy from osteoarthritis. Thus, there is no need to take medicines unless you have major problems.
You can also try anti-inflammatory drugs, so-called NSAIDs, which are available at the pharmacy without a prescription. These drugs can cause stomach upset. You should not use NSAIDs if you are over 75, or if you have any cardiovascular disease or have had a stomach ulcer before. Then you should use acetaminophen instead. Consult your doctor.
A new hip joint may be needed
Sometimes hip arthritis continues to deteriorate even though you do everything you can to counteract it. You may need to have a new hip joint implanted if the basic treatment of hip arthrosis no longer helps. Then the femoral neck, femoral head, and articulated bowl are replaced with artificial parts, a so-called hip joint prosthesis.
There are two different operating methods. One means cementing the new parts. The second means that the prosthesis is not cemented firmly, but must grow firmly in the bone. The latter method is more often used on younger people because this method makes it easier to remove the prosthesis if you need to be operated several times. The prosthesis usually consists of plastic and metal.
What Is Hip Arthritis?
Osteoarthritis is one of the most common joint diseases and most commonly occurs in knee joints, hip joints, finger joints and in the back joints. It is less common to get osteoarthritis if you are younger than 40 years.
Joint cartilage thins out and disappears
Osteoarthritis is a disease that develops slowly over several years. The joint surfaces in the hip joint are covered by joint cartilage, which provides a solid and acts as a sliding surface in the joint. Healthy articular cartilage has a firm and elastic texture. The cartilage is constantly building and breaking down the cartilage in a well-balanced balance. In osteoarthritis, the balance is disrupted and the breakdown goes faster than the build-up, which makes the cartilage thinner and brittle. The joint surface is opened, cracks occur in the cartilage and there is more friction between the joint surfaces. Sometimes it snaps and feels like the trail hooks up. In severe osteoarthritis, the cartilage can almost completely disappear from the bone surfaces of the joint. The skeleton adjacent to the articular cartilage can also be affected and changed.
What is the cause of hip arthritis?
It is not entirely clear why one gets hip arthritis. There is a lot of evidence that there may be congenital changes in the joint that will prevent the ball from properly fitting into the joint.
The risk of osteoarthritis increases if you have a close relative who has hip osteoarthritis. It also increases if the hip is overloaded, for example, because you have a job with poor posture, lift very heavy, exercise intensely or are overweight.
Long-term overload thus helps you develop osteoarthritis. People with heavy bodywork, such as farmers, construction workers, and firefighters are much more likely to have osteoarthritis. This also applies, for example, to elite athletes and ballet dancers, who expose their joints to major challenges. These are professions that all contain moving elements that change the mechanics so that the load increases in the joint.
Influence and participate in your care
You can seek care at any medical center or open specialist clinic you want throughout the country.
In order for you to be involved in your care and treatment, it is important that you understand the information you receive from the healthcare staff.