If you’re having a lot of hip pain at night particularly towards the outside of your hip and you are perimenopuasal or menopausal you potentially have outside hip pain syndrome. We used to call it trochanteric bursitis and occasionally it is called Gluteal Tendinopathy. The great news is there has been some amazing research out in the past 5 years which shows exercise therapy is the most effective intervention. Far more effective at 12 months than surgery or a cortisone injection. 

Why does menopause affect it? Because of the lower levels of oestrogen, this can lower the collagen in tendon repair. So tendons can become stiffer and thinner, making them more prone to injury.

What else makes the outside of your hip worse aside from sleeping?

Sometimes night pain is the only symptom and can be really painful.

Walking up hills, going up stairs, sitting to standing can all hurt. Also this first few steps in the morning can be a problem. 

What can I do to manage this pain?

The first thing we try and identify is how many steps you take each day. If walking is making you worse we will initially reduce your step count by 50% until the pain is under a 3/10. It literally is a completely unique step count reduction per person so this can vary greatly depending on severity of symptoms. 

Reduce stretch on the gluteal muscles against the outside hip pain. This is really counter intuitive because it feels stiff so you want to stretch it BUT stretching makes it more sore. Modify positions like leg crossing, standing leaning to one side or doing loads of pigeon pose.

Change your sleep position. The best position is lying on your back with a pillow under your knees. The next best is sleeping on your non sore side with one or two pillows between your knees.

Start strengthening your glutes isometrically. Isometric just means contracting your muscle without moving. Again this varies between people and no two people will probably have the same exercise. You can start with a bridge on your back. Make sure your knees are over your feet and hold for 30 seconds x 5. At least once per day. The best thing to do is come in and get your exercise program prescribed.

Get your walking or running assessed. Sometimes this is the most important part. It can be as simple as your knee crossing the midline when you walk or reducing your stride length slightly. It is hard to assess yourself so better to get one of use to do it for you.

We also generally will assess how you go up or do stairs and modify this as well.

So outside hip pain is very manageable. It does take around 3 months to really go well because tendons are slower to recover. However it is worth it to escape the night pain! If you think you need some help to get on top of it you can click HERE to book online