Hi I have been suffering from left hip pain since 2011 when I first ent to the doctor about it I got x-rays which came out with no abnormal bone structure so it was out down to a trapped nerve and was given medication to help with the pain. Roll on to 2012 I get diagnosed with MS and when the pain in my hip got worse I was told it was due to my dodgy brain sending out pain signals and/or it was my gait as my balance is something I really struggle with.
Yesterday I was at a review appointment at the Chronic Pain Clinic with a consultant who has in the past admitted his knowledge of MS is limited and at my last appointment he went back to the trapped nerve but now his opinion is that it has absolutely nothing to do with MS and that it’s buritis at the hip joint. The tendon that is attached to my hip joint is getting inflamed in turn the part of the hip that lubricates the joint has swollen and I need to get an injection in it to help.
Im ok to get the injection (will try anything to help) but it’s the fact after 4 years I have had multiple diagnoses plus the fact it’s not due to my MS baffles me in that with my balance and gait would surely contribute but mainly because I have nerve pain elsewhere like in my groin, back and now starting in my right hip.
I got an MRI done of my back done a couple of years ago and basically my lesions are mostly at my brain stem and as we all know they can affect anything below the lesion but not above and being in my brain stem you can see how my MS effects nearly every part of my body in one way or another!
I’m only 26 and my life has been put on hold partly to my MS symptoms but mostly because of this hip and back pain and basically this whole rant has been because I’m fed up with DRs giving me different diagnoses and I’m hoping someone knows more about this and can give me more of an insight.
Thank you so much for reading!
Steph
Hi Steph, I have bursitis in my hip, it’s been there for quite a few years. When it first started I was upright & still able to function & walk very well, I’ve always looked on the bursitis as something separate from my MS. I’ve had steroid injections over the years but they haven’t helped my hip. I’m now in a w/chair full time & although I still have bursitis, it’s very manageable with paracetamol.
Don’t think I’ve been much help to you, have I? But please don’t give up, if you’re unhappy with what you’ve been told go back again & keep on asking…
Good luck
Rosina x
I get bursitis in my heel and it feels nothing like what I have in my hip. I’m already in duragesic patches for my back, gabapentin, tapentadol for my hip pain which none have helped me to a point where my pain is manageable. I know I will never be pain free but I would like to aim for manageable!
With having hip pain and back pain it has effected how I walk, I now walk on the side of my foot which hurts my calf muscle when I wear shoes that don’t allow for the bend! This is in my left and it worries me because I tore my calf muscle in my right years ago so having both calves injured isn’t really an option!
Oh love! It sounds very painful. I’ve had this diasabilty for 16 years and in the beginning the hip and thigh pain was chronic, so bad that I wanted someone to chop my leg off!
As your gait is heavily affectedby MS then it has to have an effect on the hip joint.
A side issue was that I saw umpteen neuros, who kept changing my diagnosis, so I can identify with you there too.
In it a palaver eh?
Luv Pollx
Can I ask what treatment you got for your hip and thigh pain?
I really am at the end of my tether with the whole thing and I wonder if this is what I’m dealing with at 26 what do I have to look forward to in the future!
Steph
Having more than one thing the matter does tend to confuse things, doesn’t it!
I’ve had the trochanteric bursitis thing, by the way. At least, I think I have (that is what it was treated as by the physio). It was back in the days when I could still do a bit of hiking, although my gait was already wonky, and that is probably what caused it. One minute, I was hiking cheerfully along a forest path with my two hiking poles, the next I was stuck, unable to take another step. The pain at the front of my hip joint when I tried to move it was like the pain you get when you’ve shut your finger in the hinge of a door. Horrid. It took ages to inch my way to a roadside at a snail’s pace to wait for someone to take me home in the car. A steroid injection really helped, as did time, as did a strange electric anti-pain thing that the physio used for a few sessions.
It has not recurred anything like as badly, but, just occasionally, I get an unmistakable twinge of it. I did laugh at the thought that you were told it might be MS pain. No one who has had both could for a single minute mistake one for the other!
One thing I have done ever since is Pilates exercises to try to help with core stability and keep my gait as close to normal as it can be. That might have helped.
Alison
I just realised today that I have no idea what hip they are going to inject! The original hip pain that if I’m honest comes more from my groin and definitely is nerve pain or the other one that I suffer joint pain because of the way I walk to compensate for the pain in the opposite hip. Honestly wonder do drs know their arse from their elbow sometimes.
Hi, I had this about two years ago - diagnosed by a pain clinic at our local hospice. Really horrible pain in my left hip which went up and down the outside of my leg as and when it felt like it! I had physio three times per week with some type of ultrasonic thingy attached to my leg fir about twenty minutes per session. It eventually went after about twelve or so weeks - the physio said it usually goes on its own but that the physio would speed things along a bit. Apparently it was caused by not walking correctly (not balanced properly) - she said I needed to start walking properly - I wish I could!!
it went away, hasn’t returned again yet and I still walk unbalanced! Hope you get sorted x
I’m in constant pain everyday and drs look at me and see my age and not my condition. As many people with chronic pain know it constantly gets me down and it effects every part of my life.
The dr who decided about giving me the injections acts like he is doing me a favour and I think he has a time limit that he likes to spend with patients!
I have had physio before but they were concentrated on my balance and gait instead of my pain but that was through my MS nurse so I’m going to go through my gp and see if I can get referred for my pain.
I also wondered if I went private for their opinion would it make it a difference?