What Are the Treatments for Hip & Back Pain?

Hip and back pain often can be caused by degenerative discs or pressure on the sciatic nerve. How you treat hip and back pain will depend on the cause and degree of aggravation. Some treatments, such as a piriformis stretch, can be done at home. Other treatments, like pain injections, are performed on an outpatient basis. If disc degeneration is the primary cause, surgery may be needed.

Deep Piriformis Stretch

• Stretching the hip and back muscles can help relieve pain, especially if you suffer from sciatica. A tight piriformis muscle pressing on the sciatic nerve (located near your lower back) can send shooting pain along the hip and back.

  Use a wall to do a piriformis stretch. Start by lying on your back and placing your left foot flat on the wall. Your upper leg should be pointing straight up and your shin should be parallel to the floor. Place your right ankle on top of your left knee, forming an empty triangle between your legs. Put your hands on your right knee, relax your chest, and then gently press down. You should feel your piriformis muscle stretch between your right buttock, through your hip and toward your right knee. Hold this position for 30 seconds, breathing deep as you gently press. Switch legs and repeat.

Injections

• Sometimes the hip or back pain is so intense that a pain injection is the only way to help alleviate it. Lumbar epidural injections work by injecting a combination of a local anesthetic and anti-inflammatory medications into the lumbar region epidural, which surrounds the spinal cord and nerve roots. The anti-inflammatory steroid inhibits the immune system's response to the damaged area, while the local anesthetic such as lidocaine works to flush out any inflammation-causing chemicals. These injections are administered by doctors.

Surgery

• If the hip and back pain is caused by a degenerative disc, surgery may be the only option. Degenerative discs are damaged discs along the spine that can compress down on a nerve, causing extreme pain and irritation. Surgeries can remove any number of the damaged spine parts, such as the lamina, which is the back plate of a vertebra.

  For a spinal fusion laminectomy, the surgeon removes a portion of the lamina bone that's pressing on your nerve. He inserts two rods to hold the rest of the spine in place while inserting bone graft to fill in the removed lamina. Eventually the bone graft grows into new bone, adding better support.