a few days ago, i had a pretty bad crash on my bike (turned thru gravel, bike slid out from under me, landed on my hip and then flipped up to my head… not pretty). it appears i landed right on my hip bone, and something hasn’t felt right since. it feels like my muscle is rubbing over the hip joint (where my femur goes into my hip). it almost feels like itbs, but the pain is in my hip and not my knee. any ideas on what this could be?
ps. i know i should go see a doc, but i’m in the process of moving out right now and i’m leaving in a day or two to guide a climbing trip for a week, so i dont really have time to.
Hello Dirt,
Well, first of all like you said in your “p.s.” you should see a doc… There’s always the posibility that you fractured your hip.
That said, I had a similar experience… I was chasing my cat into the garage and I caught the door handle flush on the hip. Like you, it just didn’t feel right (didn’t feel stable and it felt wierd lifting my leg). What I did was iced the injury, swam, hip flexor stretches and weights for a week and i’m back feeling much better. Like any injury, the more you use it when it’s aggrevated, the longer it takes to heal… Even to a point when it becomes a reoccuring problem.
I’ve attached a link of the hip flexor and you can see it’s a pretty big muscle going all the way to the groin area. You can also see that if you do something to your hip, it’s likely going to affect that muscle… Good luck and happy recovery.
http://www.fitstep.com/Advanced/Anatomy/Graphics/hip-flexors-anatomy.jpg
Your IT band runs over the location you describe, and ITBS can manifest pain at the hip as well as the knee.
If you landed directly on the side of your hip you may have caused an acute inflammation of the bursa that lies over the greater trochanter (the purple structure in the picture is the bursa).
Check the following link to get some good info on trochanteric bursitis.
http://www.dynomed.com/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/hip_and_thigh/Trochanteric_Bursitis.html
Ice massage is a good idea, fill paper cup with water, place in freezer, once frozen peel down the paper and rub ice on affected area until numb (approx 10 min.) If pain doesn’t subside in a few days definitely see your doc.