Why Does Your Hip Hurt When You Sleep on Your Side?
You lie down on your side. Everything feels comfortable at first. Then, sometime during the night, you wake up with an ache on the outside of your hip.
You roll over to the other side, and the pain improves. But when you lie on that hip again, the discomfort comes back.
Sound familiar?
Many people assume that pain on the outside of the hip must be coming from deep inside the hip joint. But that isn't always the case.
The painful area may actually involve the muscles, tendons, or other soft tissues on the outside of the hip.
What Is Causing the Pain?
One common source of outer-hip pain involves the gluteal tendons, particularly the tendons connected to the gluteus Medius and Gluteus Minimus muscles.
These muscles help stabilize your pelvis and control your hip when you walk, climb stairs, stand on one leg, or move from one position to another.
Their tendons attach near the greater trochanter, the bony prominence you can feel on the outside of your upper thigh.
When these tissues become irritated or overloaded, you may develop pain around the outside of the hip.
This type of problem is often described as greater trochanteric pain syndrome (GTPS) or gluteal tendinopathy.
Why Does Sleeping on Your Side Hurt?
One of the biggest clues is compression.
When you lie directly on your painful side, your body weight puts pressure on the tissues around the outside of the hip.
If those tissues are already sensitive or irritated, staying in that position for a long period of time can make the pain worse.
Interestingly, sleeping on the opposite side isn't always completely comfortable either. If the top leg drops across the body, it can increase compression around the outer hip.
That's why some people notice that their hip hurts when sleeping on either side, depending on how their legs are positioned.
What Other Symptoms Can Occur?
Outer-hip pain isn't limited to nighttime.
You may also notice:
Tenderness when you press on the outside of your hip
Pain when lying on your side
Pain when climbing stairs
Discomfort during prolonged walking
Pain when standing on one leg
Pain getting up from a chair
Aching that extends down the outside of the thigh
Difficulty finding a comfortable sleeping position
These symptoms can fit with GTPS or gluteal tendon problems, but symptoms alone don't tell you exactly where the problem is coming from.
It's Not Always "Bursitis"
You may have heard outer-hip pain called trochanteric bursitis. The bursa near the greater trochanter can certainly become involved. However, current patient guidance and clinical information increasingly recognize that gluteal tendon problems are a common contributor to lateral hip pain, with the bursa being only one possible part of the picture.
That's important because treating every case of outer-hip pain as "bursitis" may miss other contributing factors.
What About Tight Hips or Hip and Pelvic Mechanics?
This is where things can become more complicated. Your hip doesn't work by itself. The hip, pelvis, lower back, and surrounding muscles all work together when you walk, stand, bend, climb stairs, and sleep in different positions.
Muscle tightness, weakness, changes in activity, movement patterns, and the way the hip and pelvis are functioning can all contribute to how much stress is placed on the tissues around the hip. That's why simply stretching the painful area or assuming that your hip is "weak" isn't always the answer.
The first step is figuring out what is actually contributing to your pain.
Could Your Lower Back Be Part of the Problem?
Sometimes, hip-area pain isn't coming primarily from the hip. Problems in the lower back can also produce pain into the buttock and thigh. A bulging or herniated disc can sometimes irritate a nearby nerve and cause pain, numbness, tingling, or weakness into the leg.
However, it's important not to assume that a bulging disc is the cause simply because an MRI or other imaging shows one.
Many people have disc bulges or herniations without symptoms. The location and pattern of your pain, your movement, your strength, your neurological symptoms, and a physical examination all help determine whether the lower back may be contributing.
Don't Guess Where Your Hip Pain Is Coming From
If your hip consistently hurts when you sleep on your side, especially if the problem has been going on for a while, it's worth having it evaluated. Pain on the outside of your hip could involve the gluteal tendons or other tissues around the greater trochanter. It could also be influenced by how your hip and pelvis are moving. And in some cases, symptoms in the hip or buttock may be related to a problem in the lower back.
At Spinal Solutions Chiropractic, we look beyond simply asking, "Where does it hurt?"
We want to understand why it hurts. Your examination may include looking at your hip and pelvic mechanics, range of motion, muscle tightness and strength, movement patterns, and the lower back to determine whether the problem appears to be coming from the hip itself or whether the lower back may be contributing.
Your Hip Pain May Not Be Coming From Your Hip
You don't have to guess.
If hip pain is keeping you awake at night or making it difficult to walk, climb stairs, exercise, or sleep comfortably, schedule an examination at Spinal Solutions Chiropractic so we can evaluate the possible source of your symptoms and determine what may be contributing to the problem.
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