Outer-hip pain is different from arthritis
Pain on the outer side of the hip, rather than in the groin, commonly comes from the gluteal tendons or the iliotibial band, and is sometimes called greater trochanteric pain syndrome. It can make lying on that side uncomfortable and can flare with activity.
Because it is treated quite differently from arthritis, it is worth having the source of the pain accurately diagnosed.
Treatment, conservative first
The encouraging news is that this is frequently improved without surgery — through targeted physiotherapy, activity adjustment and other non-operative measures. I will help you understand what is driving your pain and start with the least-invasive plan that is likely to work for you.
You will hear the phrase “conservative treatment” a great deal, and on its own it means very little. In practice it comes down to three things: the physiotherapy above, a cortisone injection, and pain relief. For most people, working properly through those is enough.
If you have genuinely worked through all three and the pain is still there — still limiting what you can do, still there on the stairs — then surgery becomes the logical next step. That is not bad news, because there are good options at that point.
What matters then is getting the right picture. An X-ray shows arthritis but it does not show tendons, so an MRI is usually next — it shows whether the tendon is irritated, partly torn, or fully torn, and that changes the plan. Where a tear is confirmed, I offer specialised techniques including keyhole (endoscopic) gluteal tendon repair: a much smaller operation than a hip replacement, performed through small incisions, that treats the tendon itself rather than masking the pain.
If you would rather hear this than read it, the short clip alongside covers the same ground.
A brief look at outer-hip pain — the same message as this page, in about thirty seconds.
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