Plenty of people with a torn labrum can’t remember hurting it. What they notice is a sharp little pinch deep in the front of the hip every time they climb into the driver’s seat. Sometimes it’s a click, or a weird catch, when you stand up from a low couch. Lots of people tell us they assumed it was a pulled groin muscle and kept waiting for it to heal. When it didn’t, they finally got it checked.
So what is it? Around the rim of your hip socket there’s a rubbery lip of cartilage. It makes the socket a bit deeper and keeps the top of your thigh bone sitting where it should. Once a piece of it tears, the hip tends to ache, stiffen up, and sometimes feel like it can’t be trusted.
How It Gets Torn
Every now and then it’s one bad moment, like slipping on a wet floor or planting a foot wrong in a pickup soccer game. More often it wears through bit by bit. Hips that do a lot of pivoting and deep bending take the most wear. We see it in runners, dancers, golfers, yoga fans, and parents who coach weekend games at Gilbert Regional Park and end up playing a little too hard.
Bone shape plays a big part too. Some hips are just shaped a little off from birth, so the ball and the socket don’t line up perfectly. Every time that hip bends deeply, the edges pinch the labrum, and over the years it starts to fray.
Signs It Could Be Your Labrum
People tend to mention a few of these:
- An ache down in the groin, or right at the crease where your leg meets your body
- A click or a catch, and once in a while the hip feels stuck for a second
- Pain when you sit for a long time or bend low, like tying your shoes
- Stiffness that makes it hard to bring your knee toward your chest
Some people cup their hand around the side of the hip to show us where it hurts, with their thumb in front and fingers behind. That’s a pretty common sign the problem is inside the joint.
What Non-Surgical Care Looks Like
We’ll move your hip through a few positions to see which ones bring on the pain and check the strength in your glutes and core. An MRI might come in if we need a closer look at the labrum.
A lot of people improve without surgery. For the first few weeks, you’ll back off the stuff that keeps pinching it, like deep squats and those low patio chairs. Meanwhile, therapy gets your glutes and core stronger, which takes a load off the joint. We’ll watch how you swing a golf club or squat in the gym and tweak it if something’s off. When the hip stays angry anyway, a shot right into the joint is an option. Surgery usually only comes up if months of steady work haven’t made a difference.
If your hip has been clicking or aching for a while, come see us at Modern Medicine of Gilbert, AZ. We’ll find out what’s going on in the joint and put together a plan to help you feel better.
