What could it be?

Question

My mother has been suffering from severe pain in the lower hip area. She suffers from pain when she stands, sits, walks, does any physical activity for 10mins or more (some days less than that). She says she feels a pain in the bone area of the hip (it looks as though it may be the head of the femur). The pain is so severe she can't even move at times. She has gotten up from bed & fallen due to losing stability in her left leg. Says whenever she's heard a POPPING sound she feels better for a moment. (I've actually heard it POP that's how loud it sounds). Doesn't happen too often, though. She had surgery last year b/c the doctor was under the assumption it was a hernia (from the area she was feeling pain) but that wasn't the case & a year later, it's gotten worse. She also has degenerative disease of the spine. What could this be? A bone fracture, arthritis? MRI results came back ok but it only focused on the pelvic area & not the surrounding bone of the leg.

Answer 1

My hips are double jointed and used to slip out when I was pg -- extreme pain. Your moms hip sounds like it is losing the protective covering on it and slipping out of the socket. She should get it looked at by an orthopedic surgeon.

Answer 2

Could this pain be sciatica pain stemming from her lower back?

The sciatica nerve is a nerve that runs through the SI joints in your lower back and then if the nerve is pinched the pain can travel all the way to your foot along the sciatica nerve. The worst of it is in the hip area, but I'm wondering if it's a nerve that's being pinched and possibly that one.

When I first read what you wrote I thought for sure her hip joint was going, and possibly even bone cancer. But if you said she's had all these tests and they found nothing it's really weird.

You know they have many other machines that do different things (CT scan, bone scan, gallium scan, PET scan). They need to put her through those, possibly the PET scan being the best one (and most recent). The bone scan will pick up abnormalities with the bone and bone cancer, and the gallium scan soft tissue abnormalities and cancer. The PET is by far the best in picking up cancer and I'm not sure what else as it's fairly new.

Obviously there is something wrong, and they need to find out what.

Since they didn't focus on the bone of the leg I would go in and demand that further testing be done. You said they looked at the pelvis so I'm assuming they looked at the hip joint.

Bursitis can set in for people who have sat a lot on thier job etc and cause hip pain. But if the joint is going, you need to find that out. Hip replacements are common these days.

If they won't investigate further get another doctor or specialist who will. Go see a BONE doctor (orthopedic surgeon). They are best equipped and will get to the source.

Good luck.

Answer 3

Popping is almost always caused by muscles being too tight. The best book I can recommend is The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook by Davies. It teaches you how to help yourself but can be used by a professional to help you as well.

Answer 4

WHy dont you request a 3 phase bone scan. That will scan her entire body. Also have her see a pain management Dr. she might have fibromyalgia...