If your hip hurts, the first step is figuring out where exactly the pain is and how it started, because that tells you whether you can manage it at home or need professional help. Most hip pain improves with a combination of rest, targeted exercises, and simple over-the-counter pain relief. But certain patterns, like pain after a fall or pain with fever, need immediate attention.
What the Location of Your Pain Tells You
Hip pain isn’t one-size-fits-all, and where you feel it narrows down the likely cause significantly. Pain in the front of your hip (the groin area) often points to problems inside the joint itself: osteoarthritis, a torn piece of cartilage called the labrum, or a condition where the ball and socket don’t fit together smoothly. In people over 50, front-of-hip pain with morning stiffness lasting less than an hour is a classic sign of osteoarthritis. A stress fracture in the upper thighbone can also show up as deep groin pain, especially in runners or people who recently ramped up their activity.
Pain on the outside of your hip is the most common pattern and usually comes from the soft tissues rather than the joint. The umbrella term is greater trochanteric pain syndrome, which includes inflammation of the fluid-filled sac on the bony point of your hip (bursitis) and wear or tearing of the tendons that attach your buttock muscles to that bone. This type of pain often flares when you lie on the affected side or climb stairs.
Pain in the back of your hip or deep in your buttock frequently isn’t coming from the hip joint at all. It may be referred from your lower back, your sacroiliac joint (where the spine meets the pelvis), or from irritation of the nerves and muscles deep in the buttock. Hamstring tendon problems where they attach near the sit bone also cause posterior hip pain, particularly in people who do a lot of running or lunging.
Immediate Steps for Pain Relief
For the first few days after hip pain starts, especially if it followed an activity change or minor strain, focus on protecting the area without completely immobilizing it. Avoid movements that reproduce sharp pain, but gentle walking and light movement are better than bed rest. Total immobilization can slow healing rather than help it.
Ice can reduce pain in the first 48 to 72 hours. Apply a wrapped ice pack to the painful area for 15 to 20 minutes at a time. After those initial days, shift your approach toward gradual, pain-free loading of the hip. Current sports medicine thinking, outlined in a framework published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, emphasizes that the early protection phase should transition into gentle, progressive movement as soon as tolerable. The old advice to rest and ice indefinitely has fallen out of favor because it doesn’t account for the later stages of tissue healing.
Over-the-counter ibuprofen can help with both pain and inflammation. A safe starting dose is 200 to 400 mg every four to six hours, up to 1,200 mg per day. Don’t use it for more than 10 consecutive days without medical guidance. There’s also a tradeoff worth knowing about: anti-inflammatory medications reduce pain effectively, but some evidence suggests they may slightly slow the body’s natural tissue repair process. For short-term relief, they’re reasonable. For ongoing pain, other strategies may serve you better.
Exercises That Build Hip Stability
Strengthening the muscles around your hip is one of the most effective long-term strategies for reducing pain, regardless of the cause. Weak gluteal muscles are a common contributor to both lateral and anterior hip pain because they fail to stabilize the joint during walking, stairs, and standing on one leg. Aim to do these exercises three to four times per week.
A single-leg hip bridge targets the deep gluteal muscles. Lie on your back with knees bent, lift one foot off the ground, then press through the planted foot to raise your hips. Do 10 to 15 repetitions per side for two to three sets. Lateral band walks, where you place a resistance band around your legs and sidestep, are excellent for the muscles on the outside of the hip. Walk 10 steps in each direction, rest, and repeat three times. Lateral step-downs (standing on a low step and slowly lowering the opposite foot toward the ground) build single-leg control. Do 10 repetitions per leg for two sets. Single-leg deadlifts, where you hinge forward on one leg while extending the other behind you, work both hip stability and hamstring strength. Aim for 12 repetitions and three sets on each side.
If any of these exercises reproduce sharp pain in the joint, scale back. A dull muscular ache during strengthening is normal. A pinch or catch in the groin is not, and suggests you should get the hip assessed before continuing.
How to Sleep With Hip Pain
Nighttime is when many people notice hip pain most, particularly if they sleep on their side. If you’re a side sleeper, lie on the hip that doesn’t hurt and place one or more pillows between your knees. This keeps your pelvis aligned and takes pressure off the tendons and bursa on the outside of the painful hip. A thicker pillow works better than a thin one.
If you sleep on your back, tuck a pillow or rolled blanket under your knees and consider a second one under the small of your back. This reduces the pull of the hip flexor tendons across the front of the joint, which can be a significant source of overnight discomfort.
When Hip Pain Needs Medical Attention
Most hip pain is not an emergency, but certain combinations of symptoms warrant immediate care. Seek urgent attention if you experience severe hip pain after a fall or injury, an inability to walk or bear weight on the leg, sudden severe pain with no obvious cause, numbness or tingling in the hip or leg after trauma, a hip that looks swollen and feels hot to the touch, or hip pain accompanied by fever. A hot, swollen joint with fever can signal an infection inside the joint, which requires rapid treatment to prevent permanent damage.
For pain that isn’t urgent but hasn’t improved after two to three weeks of home care, or pain that consistently limits your ability to walk, work, or sleep, it’s worth getting a professional evaluation. An X-ray is typically the first imaging test for hip pain, particularly if there’s been trauma. If X-rays look normal but a fracture is still suspected, a CT scan is the usual next step. For soft tissue injuries like tendon tears, labral tears, or muscle damage, an MRI provides the clearest picture.
Injection Options for Persistent Pain
If conservative treatment hasn’t resolved your pain after several weeks or months, injections are a common next step before considering surgery. Cortisone (corticosteroid) injections are the most reliable option for hip pain relief. They work by deactivating inflammatory cells in the joint, stopping them from triggering pain signals. Relief typically lasts anywhere from a few weeks to six months.
Hyaluronic acid injections, which add a lubricating gel to the joint, have stronger evidence for knees than hips but have shown some benefit in hip joints. When they work, relief can last four to six months. Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections use a concentrated portion of your own blood to stimulate healing. There’s supporting data for PRP in hip osteoarthritis and tendon injuries, and patients who respond may get six months to a year of symptom relief. PRP is less widely covered by insurance than cortisone.
None of these injections are permanent fixes, but they can provide a window of reduced pain that makes it easier to do the strengthening work that addresses the underlying problem.