03 / Understand the area
Outside of the hip
Pain over the outside of the hip can make sleeping on your side, climbing stairs or taking a longer walk uncomfortable.
An educational guide that covers the left and right sides alike. Where it hurts is a useful clue, but only a clue.
A useful starting point
What this area can tell you.
A gluteal tendon problem is one possible explanation for this pattern, but where it hurts doesn't confirm it. The exam may also look at the hip joint and lower back, and at how the pain responds to the load of an ordinary day. It helps us to know if lying on that side feels different from walking or standing. With a tendon, exercise and activity are usually stepped up gradually, and progress is checked against something concrete, like the walk you've been cutting short.
Notice the pattern
Three questions to bring with you.
You don't need to know what it is before you come in. These are details that help when you tell us what you're feeling.
- Does pressure from lying on that side feel different from pain while walking?
- Do stairs, hills or standing on one leg to get dressed bring on the familiar pain?
- Has how far you walk or how much you exercise changed, and do you have back or groin pain too?
When to get help sooner
Severe hip pain after a fall or inability to bear weight needs urgent medical assessment. A hot, swollen hip area with fever, or new leg weakness, also needs prompt care.
Follow the connection
Possible explanations. Better questions.
These guides cover conditions and patterns that may overlap with this area. Think of them as a place to start our conversation: no body map can tell you which one, if any, you have.
What the studies found, and where they stop
How the research fits this area.
The trial studied confirmed gluteal tendinopathy, not hip pain in general. At one year, education and exercise improved reported recovery more than an injection did, though pain scores between those groups weren't different by then.
How we select and explain sources ↗Follow the evidence
Research, with context.
Selected published sources behind what we've written, each with what it found and what it can't tell us. We give you both halves because no paper can diagnose you or predict how your own care will go.
Education plus exercise versus corticosteroid injection use versus a wait and see approach on global outcome and pain from gluteal tendinopathy: prospective, single blinded, randomised clinical trial
204 adults aged 35 to 70 with confirmed gluteal tendinopathy.
What it foundEducation with load management and exercise improved pain and global recovery more at eight weeks. Global improvement remained better than injection at 52 weeks.
What it can't tell usAt 52 weeks, pain didn't differ significantly from the injection group. These results are about gluteal tendinopathy, not all hip pain or hip arthritis.
Publication details & citation
Mellor et al. Education plus exercise versus corticosteroid injection use versus a wait and see approach on global outcome and pain from gluteal tendinopathy: prospective, single blinded, randomised clinical trial. BMJ. 2018. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.k1662.
Read the publication record
Our editorial policy explains how to read these sources and what our clinical-review labels mean.
Your next step
Bring your questions.
We’ll start there.
Your answers to those three questions are where we start. We go over your history and symptoms, examine you, and explain what we found before we recommend anything. If it turns out to be something another doctor should look at, we'll tell you.
Anatomy: BodyParts3D, © DBCLS, CC BY 4.0. Model & rendering credits. Return to the full body explorer.