UKC

Help! 

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with this condition. I've been suffering with it for about 14 months now, it was diagnosed by my physio and I'm doing a few exercises but otherwise carrying on as normal. The pain fluctuates but it's there most days, radiating across my hip/back or down and around my leg depending on what mood it's in. I keep a diary to track the trend and, we'll, it doesn't seem to be getting any better.

I'd just like to hear if anyone has had it, if it went away, what helped, anything really.

Thanks 

Had it for some time now. As you say the pain fluctuates. I've had injections of cortisone into it which are effective for a while but not a permanent fix. Quite a few of the exercises I've been given by my physio actually exacerbate it ! If it's only been diagnosed by your physio, my advice is to have an ultrasound scan to confirm this - there are other bits and pieces that can have very similar symptoms.

Thanks. 

Yeah I was thinking it might be time to go to the GP. I haven't been yet as I don't really have much faith in mine.

PS how long have you had it?

Hard to say as it fluctuates, sometimes disappears for a while (on its own, not from injections) but then flares up again... Probably two or three years, or more.

I think mine is tendinopathy of the gluteus maximus rather than the medius. Had it since the start of 2018 unfortunately. I found I had to be very patient and consistently work away at it with physio and other similar exercises. I only noticed an improvement after comparing back over the period of a year or so as there was lots of fluctuation up and down. Barely bothered me in 2021 due to having lots of time to work at it and then has come back in 2022/23 due to life difficulties meaning I can't do exercises as consistently. I noticed some exercises specifically exacerbated it and either reduced load drastically or took advice from my physio on alternatives.

Hi Luke

I am a physio, in 30 years I never met a glute medius tendinopathy. Maybe I have not been lucky.  An ultrasound scan will confirm it. If you have back pain and leg pain too, then it could be a lumbar disc issue.

It is useful to know that if back pain gets better with walking then it is a disc issue. If it is worse with walking then it is a sacro iliac problem or perhaps the mystery tendinopathy.

If you are tired of the mystery then it is a good idea to get some imaging

All the best

Yeah, some vague lower back, buttock, leg pain made me think nerve entrapment etc. I had vague fluctuating pains like this last year which progressed to several months of sciatica. A physio had diagnosed quadratus femoris something or other...a tendinopathy of some sort. I got MRI eventually.....found I've got a degenerating L4/5 joint with compression of my nerves. As far as I'm aware this sort of thing is very common so going by common things are common?????

Like you say, a gp will struggle to give you a diagnosis. Who to see? I went to a spinal surgeon.....but was in sciatica by that point. Even then it was....you need an MRI to see if or what may be going on. I suspect diagnosing the cause of vague pains like this isn't easy.....guessing.

Good luck seeing a GP 

I agree with jimb, look into it further,i had something very similar to you and it turned out to be a soas problem and like you the physio gave me exercises to do for the glute medius,which did nothing, and to be fair the glute medius is probably the weakest under trained muscle in the lower body.

Don't know if you're old enough for this, but my arthritic hip was initially diagnosed by a physio as a gluteus medius issue. Symptoms very similar to what you describe.
Might want to get an x-ray just to rule arthritis out.

Thanks for all the replies, certainly some food for thought. 

This surprises me as a number of specialists (surgeon, rhumatologist and physio) have told me that it's not an infrequent complication after hip replacements... Anyway, now you have !!

It all sounds a right pain in the ass!

Seriously who is going to do that? If you go gp they get physio to do phone call then sign you off. Are there private ultrasound folk?