Can the back be involved with my hip/leg pain?

Yes, the lumbar spine can absolutely cause pain into the hip and/or legs. This is more likely to be the case if you also have pain in your back and/or back-specific activities that cause hip and/or leg pain. If we are not sure if your pain is coming from your hip or your back, we will perform lumbar specific testing to see if we can reproduce your exact hip/leg pain. If this is the case, we will likely start treatment at the back to see what improvements we can make. We will also monitor specific activities to assess the impact of our treatments. For example, if your concern is your ability to walk without pain, we will track the progress you make with “lumbar-directed” treatments to determine if we should focus more on the back or shift attention to the hip. 

References

1. Cibulka, Michael T. et al. “Hip Pain and Mobility Deficits—Hip Osteoarthritis: Revision 2017.” Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, Vol. 47, No. 6, 2017, pp. A1-A37. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT), https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2017.0301.
2. Delitto, A., George, S., Van Dillen, L., Whitman, J., Sowa, G., Shekelle, P., Denninger, T. and Godges, J., 2012. Low Back Pain. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, 42(4), pp. A1-A57.
3. Enseki, Keelan et al. “Nonarthritic Hip Joint Pain.” Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, Vol. 44, No. 6, 2014, pp. A1-A32. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy (JOSPT), https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2014.0302.

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