A diagnosis of Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome can often be easily made in the clinic. Patients come in complaining of pain during activity or are woken at night with pain in the hip they are lying on. The Physiotherapist or Osteopath will examine you. Palpating the area over the greater trochanteric bursae will cause significant pain. We can further confirm the diagnosis in our clinic using our Ultrasound scanner if required (often not needed as it’s so obvious); however, looking at the involvement of the gluteus medius tendon can prove helpful.
Assessing and analysing the biomechanics of the foot (arches), the knee (valgus or varus), the hip, sacroiliac joints (pelvis) and lumbar spine are all significant to determine the root cause of why GTPS has become a problem in the first instance.
Conservative treatment such as physiotherapy, osteopathy, shockwave therapy, biomechanical offloading, progressive exercise loading (including abdominal and gluteus strengthening), Oral NSAIDS and occasionally Corticosteroid injections are the go-to treatment options. Treatment and exercise therapy can take a little while to improve, so please don’t expect to have one visit for this condition. On the rare occasion, we will refer a patient to one of our Hip Orthopaedic Specialist partners where other treatment options such as Plasma Rich Protein (PRP) and Stem Cell injections may be explored. On very rare occasions, due to multiple hip pathologies being co-existent, a patient may require surgery.
If you would like to discuss your possible GTPS diagnosis and would like a call back from one of our Clinicians, please call the clinic.
Research Papers