The causes for pain at hip and legs are various, from osteoarthritis, sciatic nerve pain to muscles around. Because the pain adversely affected people’s walking, it is one of the most common problem people looking for acupuncture treatment.
1. Osteoarthritis
As the name suggested, osteoarthritis is related to “wear and tear” degeneration of articular surface of the joint. There is cartilage between joint bones used to prevent from rubbing against each other. The pain comes out when the cartilage gradually wear out over time. The patients usually have pain around hip joint, sometimes accompanied withstiffness and movement limitation. Interesting, tender spots identified around hip joints are located precisely at sites of acupuncture points.
2. Sciatic nerve pain
It usually presents withpain from lower back, down thebuttock, leg and calf. As mentioned in the lower back pain, recentresearch indicated that the pain might be due to local muscles spasm as a result of partially prolapsed disc. Piriformis syndrome also leads to sciatic nerve pain. So a thorough medical check is very important. In Chinese medicine, there are two meridians running through back andexternal side of legs, similar to referred pain occurring at sciatic nerve pain.
3. Hamstring tendonitis
This usually occurs with runners. The patients complain pain at the buttock, and in severe cases, they found very painful when sitting down.It is mainly due to the inflammation at high end of the hamstring. But because the area is short of blood supply, the recovery always takes a relative long time.
4. Bursitison the greater trochanter
Bursa is a small fluid-filled sac, working as cushion between bones, tendons and muscles. When it gets inflamed mainly due to repetitive motion, patients usually suffer a quite severe pain and restriction in some movement. At hip joint, it is usually seen at the greater trochanter area.
5. Iliotibial band syndrome
Iliotibial Band, known as IT Band, is thick band of fascia running from outside of pelvis to outside of knees. When the band flares up, the pain ranging from mild, nagging to severe, debilitating, might cover the whole band area. It happens often with runners as well due to repetitive irritation.
