Common Causes Of Lower Back Pain That Radiates To The Front Pelvic Area
As lower back pain may cause referred pain in other parts of the body, including the front of the pelvis, its common to be misdiagnosedespecially if youre not seen by health care professionals who specialize in spinal-related issues.
Low back and front pelvic pain can come from many sources including:
- Bulging discs and nerve root irritation
- Sacroiliac joint injuries and pelvic dysfunction
- Physiological changes during pregnancy
- Generalized low back pain and facet joint injuries
A thorough examination can be used to figure out whether an individual’s pain is due to a problem with the spine, nerves, muscles, or sacroiliac joint. Physical therapists are well-versed in anatomy, biology, physiology, and kinesiology . This allows them to pinpoint areas of concern when symptoms are reported, such as lower back pain that radiates into the pelvis.
When To See A Medical Professional
A lot of back pain slowly enhances with home treatment and self-care, normally within a few weeks. Call your medical professional if your back pain:
Persists past a few weeks Lower Back Pain And Groin Discomfort
Is serious and also doesnt improve with rest
Spreads down one or both legs, especially if the discomfort prolongs below the knee
Reasons weakness, pins and needles or prickling in one or both legs
Is accompanied by inexplicable weight management
In unusual instances, back pain can signify a significant medical problem. Look for immediate care if your back pain:
Causes brand-new bowel or bladder issues
Is accompanied by a high temperature
Adheres to a fall, impact to your back or other injury Demand a Visit at Mayo Center
Low Back Pain Caused By Back Deterioration As Well As Injury.
Repetitive hefty training or a sudden awkward movement can strain back muscular tissues and spinal ligaments. If youre in bad physical condition, constant strain on your back can cause unpleasant muscle spasms.
Disks serve as cushions in between the bones in your back. The soft material inside a disk can protrude or burst and continue a nerve. Nevertheless, you can have a protruding or fractured disk without back pain. Disk disease is commonly found incidentally when you have spine X-rays for a few other reason.
Your backs vertebrae can create uncomfortable fractures if your bones become permeable and breakable.
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Area Of Pain Distribution
Referred pain is usually felt in the low back area and tends to radiate into the groin, buttock and upper thigh. The pain often moves around, and rarely radiates below the knee. This type of low back pain is not as common as axial low back pain or radicular pain sciatica.
See What You Need to Know About Sciatica
Referred pain is analogous to the pain that radiates down the left arm during a heart attack. It is the result of the extensive network of interconnecting sensory nerves that supply many of the tissues of the low back, pelvis and thigh.
An injury to any of these structures can cause pain to radiate or be referred – to any of the other structures. It is important to understand that this type of pain is not due to pinched nerves.
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How Does Hip Pain Cause Back Pain
Anatomy of the hip and low back
When we walk, the hips must move fluidly to allow symmetry in our walking pattern. When the hip does not move properly or there is a pain in the hip, other areas of the body must move to compensate for the lack of hip joint movement. The low back is the most common area that has to compensate with extra movement.
When the hip does not extend behind the body, the spine has to rotate and extend more than normal to allow efficient walking. Over time, the extra movement in the lower back can lead to wear and tear. Eventually, the low back can become painful.
Hip arthritis and limited flexibility are 2 common reasons for limited hip mobility.
Physical Therapy Guide To Groin Strain
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A groin strain is an injury to the grointhe area of the body where the abdomen meets the leg and the inner thigh muscles attach to the pubic bone. Typically, groin strains occur in the muscles of the upper inner thigh near the pubic bone or in the front of the hip. This injury tends to be more common in athletes and men however, certain activities can increase the risk for anyone to experience a groin strain. Groin strains can occur during sprinting or any type of activity requiring forceful movement of the leg, such as jumping, kicking the leg up, or changing directions while running. Groin strains account for 10% of all hockey injuries and 5% of all soccer injuries. Physical therapists treat groin strains by reducing pain and helping patients improve muscle strength and leg motion and to increase the speed of recovery.
Physical therapists are movement experts. They improve quality of life through hands-on care, patient education, and prescribed movement. You can contact a physical therapist directly for an evaluation. To find a physical therapist in your area, visit Find a PT.
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Medical Conditions That Cause Back Pain
Conditions that can cause back pain include:
- a slipped disc this can cause back pain and numbness, tingling and weakness in other parts of the body
- sciatica this can cause pain, numbness, tingling and weakness in the lower back, buttocks, legs and feet
- ankylosing spondylitis this causes pain and stiffness that’s usually worse in the morning and improves with movement
- spondylolisthesis this can cause lower back pain and stiffness, as well as numbness and a tingling sensation
These conditions are treated differently to non-specific back pain.
Very rarely, back pain can be a sign of a serious problem such as:
- a broken bone in the spine
- an infection
- cauda equina syndrome
- some types of cancer, such as multiple myeloma
If you see a GP with back pain, they’ll look for signs of these.
Page last reviewed: 14 January 2020 Next review due: 14 January 2023
When The Hip Is The Usual Suspect
Surprisingly, hip problemsusually produce groin pain on the affected side. Thats because the actualjoint of the hip is near the spine.
Groin pain is a hip issue until proven otherwise, says back pain specialist Russell DeMicco, DO. Pain above the belt line is not a hip issue.
The most common cause ofhip pain is osteoarthritis of the hip joint. You may have hip arthritis if:
- Pain is in your groin.
- Discomfort comes and goes, becoming more frequent over time.
- Pain worsens with standing, walking and activity, and is relieved by rest.
- You feel stiff.
- You walk with a limp.
Avascular necrosis, or AVN,is a serious condition marked by death of hip bone at the joint. The pain isusually worse and far more constant than in osteoarthritis. People come to mesaying, My hip is killing me, says Dr. Murray.
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How Is It Diagnosed
If you see your physical therapist first, your therapist will conduct a thorough evaluation that includes taking your health history. The first goal of your physical therapist is to exclude any other serious conditions causing your symptoms that would warrant a referral to another health care provider. Since groin pain can be present with other diagnoses involving your hip, pelvis, or lower back, your physical therapist may ask specific questions or use additional tests to assess the possible contribution of these other regions to your pain.
Your physical therapist may ask you:
- What were doing when you first felt pain?
- Where did you feel the pain?
- Did you hear a pop when it occurred?
- Did you receive a direct hit to your leg or groin area?
- Did you notice any swelling in the first 2 to 3 hours following the injury?
- Do you feel pain when lifting your leg, walking, moving the leg away from you, or drawing your knees together?
Your physical therapist will perform special tests to help determine a diagnosis of a groin strain, such as:
- Gently moving your leg away from your body.
- Asking you to resist against his or her hand as he or she tries to gently push your leg outward .
- Gently feeling parts of the muscle to determine the specific location of the injury .
Causes Of Groin Pain That Comes From The Hip
Groin pain that originates in your hip can vary in how it feels. It can be either sharp or dull, and either sudden or gradual. Its type and severity will depend on its cause.
If your pain results from problems in your muscles, bones, tendons, or bursae, it will probably become worse when you move.
Learn what conditions originating in your hip might be causing your groin pain, and the best treatment options.
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What Are Treatments For Groin Pain
Treatment for groin pain focuses on addressing the condition causing the pain. Depending on the underlying cause and the required treatment, groin pain can take anywhere from 4 to 12 weeks to heal.
Home treatment is often effective for groin pain caused by minor muscle strains or ligament sprains, through treatments including:
- Ice or cold packs, applied 10 to 20 minutes, 3 or more times a day, to help reduce pain and swelling
- Over-the-counter pain relievers, such as acetaminophen , aspirin , ibuprofen , and naproxen . Aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen also have anti-inflammatory properties, which helps with healing.
- Rest, to minimize movement of the injured muscle and allow it to heal
- Snug-fitting clothing, such as spandex workout pants, to provide support to the groin muscles as they recover
- Stretches, to slowly bend and rotate your hip in a controlled way. Stretches improve range of motion and prevent muscles and tendons from becoming stiffand more susceptible to injury.
If your groin pain worsens or you have new pain, stop any at-home exercises and contact your doctor to discuss further treatment options.
When groin pain is caused by an underlying condition, it may require medical treatment, including:
- , to treat groin pain caused by infections, such as a or sexually transmitted disease
- and other cancer treatments, for referred groin pain caused by or lymphoma
- , to address referred groin pain from hip damage caused by or arthritis
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Why Does My Hip Hurt When I Sit
The hip joint allows us to move around, sit, get up or stand, so if there is a problem with cartilage, tendons, ligaments, or bones, it will manifest itself as sharp radiating pain, stiffness in the joint, or referred pain felt in the groin area, down the inner thigh. Interestingly enough, lower back can cause the pain to radiate to the hip.
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The Team At Sydney Spine And Pelvis Are At The Forefront Of Providing Professional Education Treatment And Rehabilitation For Pelvic Injuries And Back Pain
Low back pain has many sources:
- There is the person who has just hurt their back acutely from an incorrect lift or a sporting injury. Often the pain is muscular or due to a facet joint strain
- There is the person who has had a disc or nerve root injury and is struggling to sit or get their pants on, and cant get their muscles to hold them up
- Sciatic nerve and pudendal nerve irritation can cause buttock and leg pain that limits walking and activity
- There is the person who has had grumbling back pain for many years. Over time they realize their back pain is making them do less at home, work, and play. They notice they have less strength but any time they try to exercise their back pain gets worse.
- There is the person who gets back ache from sitting and standing too long, and has pain every night when they go to bed or get out of bed in the morning
- There is the person who feels there back is weak, and knows their posture is poor but does not know how to improve it.
Radiating Lower Back Pain Questionnaire
Use our free symptom checker to find out what’s causing your pain.
Severe pain always gets your attention and keeps it there, making you wonder if there is something worrisome that is wrong.
Back pain and outer hip pain area can be especially troublesome, causing you pain when you move, walk, and even when you sleep. Sciatic nerve pain is especially troubling, causing pain in the butt literally and shooting pain in the leg that begins in the mid buttock and runs down the back of the leg down to the ankle.
We’ve put together a handy guide that will help you pinpoint the exact cause of your pain and know how seriousor mild, your condition is and to know if you need to get help immediately or see a doctor at your convenience.
If you are concerned that the cause of your radiating back/hip/leg pain might be something serious, check the more serious possible causes of your pain below to see what doctors say about when to worry about radiating hip and back pain.
You can also consult our handy back pain quiz, which will help you use your symptoms to diagnose possible causes for your pain.
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What Is Radiating Pain
Radiating pain is a term used to refer to pain that is showing up in more than one location but originating from a single source. These kinds of pain often occur with back injuries and hip problems due to the large concentration of joints, ligaments, and nerves contained in that area of the body.
An example of radiating pain could be a muscle strain in the back radiating into the groin area. Because the network of muscles are so interconnected, experiencing lower back inflammation would likely cause pain in this neighboring area of the body.
How To Diagnose A Pinched Nerve Causing Groin Pain
Overall, pelvic or groin pain is difficult to diagnose as it overlaps with many other conditions in the groin and perineum. Generally, we should suspect a pinched groin nerve if investigations are normal.
Sometimes, tapping the nerve at the site of pinching can bring on pain.
In general, tests that are used to confirm a diagnosis include:
- Nerve conduction studies to confirm how and why entrapment has occurred. Sometimes, however, these studies may be normal in entrapment.
- MRI scan
- blood tests to rule out other causes of nerve dysfunction such as nerve inflammation occurring in diabetes, an underactive thyroid, or immune system problem.
- Ultrasound can follow the course of the nerve
- a nerve block using local anesthetic and directed by ultrasound can help. If an injection gets rid of the block, then the likelihood of a trapped nerve increases.
It is important to rule out other causes of groin or pelvic pain such as growths in the pelvis, pubic overload, or nerve trapping from the spine.
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Treatments For Swelling In Legs And Feet
Swelling in the legs and feet can result from a variety of different causes so treatment will vary. Treating any underlying condition is necessary first before attempting other treatments, which include:
- Wearing compression stockings to help improve circulation from the legs back to the heart
- Elevating your feet above the level of your heart after prolonged sitting or standing
- Regular exercise involving the legs to promote improved blood flow
- Increasing fluid intake and decreasing sodium intake
- Diuretic medication to help get rid of excess fluid retention
Pelvic And Groin Nerve Pain: Overview And Treatment Options
When people experience pain in the lower abdomen where the leg meets the pelvis, we often call it groin pain. Pian in the groin can also move backward to the perineal or sitting area and the buttocks or upwards towards the abdominal muscles. Generally, a wide range of conditions can cause groin pain including osteitis pubis, inguinal hernia, and hip joint problems. However, in some cases, pain can be due to a pinched nerve in the pelvis or groin. Usually, groin nerve pain is difficult to diagnose as common imaging often does not detect it. How do we diagnose pelvic and groin nerve pain and what are the treatment options?
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What Causes Groin Pain
Groin pain can be caused by a wide variety of diseases, disorders and conditions, including infections, trauma, malignancy , and other abnormal processes. Groin pain can also be due to a problem in another area, such as the hip. This is called radiating, or referred, groin pain. In some cases, groin pain is a symptom of a serious or life-threatening condition.
Treatments For Back Pain From A Specialist
A GP, specialist or physiotherapist may recommend extra treatments if they do not think your pain will improve with self-help measures alone.
These may include:
- group exercise classes where you’re taught exercises to strengthen your muscles and improve your posture
- manual therapy treatments, such as manipulating the spine and massage, which are usually done by a physiotherapist, chiropractor or osteopath
- psychological support, such as cognitive behavioural therapy , which can be a useful part of treatment if you’re struggling to cope with pain
Some people choose to see a therapist for manual therapy without seeing a GP first. If you want to do this, you’ll usually need to pay for private treatment.
Surgery is generally only considered in the small number of cases where back pain is caused by a specific medical condition.
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