Hip pain

[Nuts]

Chally, you are too funny!

Matt has the same problem with hip pain. His PT says stretch before sleep.

Raising his legs does seem to help, but I think I've found another big helper. I found a TENS unit that wraps around the calf under the knee that you can sleep with. It runs for an hour, then shuts itself off for an hour, then runs another hour. It senses when he's sleeping and turns the power down automatically. It's supposed to help with pain throughout the body, and after several days I'd say it's helping a LOT. Do a search for Quell Relief.

 

[Buckhorn]

Chally, thanks for the chuckle!

Vince, what kind of mattress are you sleeping on? Or is it an air bed? I am assuming you have lost a lot of your natural padding over your hips, and this is placing extra pressure on the greater trochanter. It sounds to me like you may have trochanteric bursitis. I would post some links here, but I'm afraid they will be pulled. At any rate, some stretching will help (google piriformis stretch - one variation of this is what Tillie mentioned) and in particular IT band stretching. No doubt you will need some assistance with these, especially the latter one. Also, if you can, when sleeping on your side, do use a pillow between your knees, have your knees flexed up toward your belly somewhat, and, see if you can find a small, gel pad to place under the hip that is facing down against the mattress. They make gel pads for wheelchairs, and while these are pretty big, they are great gel cushions. Make sure you do all three of these positional corrections together, and make sure the gel pad is not much thicker than 1". I wish you success ......

 

[BlueandGold]

I've tried the pillow between my knees. Hasn't helped yet. Today, I bought a 3" gel mattress topper to go on my mattress. I have a Tempurpedic Premium mattress with an adjustable base. I do believe the pain is due to atrophy of the muscles around my hips. Very bony. It is what it is. It just keeps marching forward and we just have to deal with it.

Vince

 

[Buckhorn]

Well, here's hoping the gel mattress topper will help you. The idea of the pillow was to keep the upper leg from pulling/pressing downward too hard, pulling on the tendons of the IT band. When you get the gel mattress topper, maybe try to do all 3 things together, as well as whatever anti-inflammatory you are allowed to take? Good luck with this. It must be hard to have extra pain added upon all the other problems that ALS causes.

 

[gooseberry]

Vince, The gel topper helped Steve a lot. I liked it too.