Get back to life with hip pain treatment.
Improving hip pain
Finding everyday activities difficult because of hip pain? Let Geisinger's orthopaedic specialists relieve your discomfort and make moving easier — so you can get back to living life.
Our approach at Geisinger
Every year, thousands of patients rely on our surgeons for joint replacements and state-of-the-art hip pain treatments.
Choose an orthopaedic team that’s recognized across the country for its experience and innovation in delivering world-class hip treatment options. And we’re a provider of Mako® robotic-assisted joint replacement surgery. This minimally invasive procedure relieves pain and restores mobility, helping you return to an active lifestyle.
With Geisinger, life-changing treatment is never far from home. Our hip pain team serves the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area, Danville and central Pennsylvania, and the greater Harrisburg region.
Common hip pain causes
People of all ages and activity levels have hip pain. It can be caused by an injury or a health condition like:
- Osteoarthritis, also known as OA. This degenerative disease wears down the cartilage in your joints, so you have less cushioning and shock absorption. That can lead to severe pain and discomfort. It’s common to have OA in your hips. You might notice symptoms like:
- Pain in one or both hips
- Pain that seems to get worse when the weather is rainy or damp
- Pain from repetitive motion or long periods of inactivity, like sitting
- Stiffness when you wake up
- Tenderness, warmth, swelling or creaking in your hip joint
- Post-traumatic arthritis develops after an injury or an accident. For example, you might be diagnosed with post-traumatic arthritis as the result of a car accident or a repetitive use injury.
- Obesity or being overweight can put extra pressure on your joints, especially weight-bearing joints like your hips.
Treating arthritis with a robotic-assisted hip replacement
Kathryn Moskel of Pottstown, Pa., was born with dysplasia in both hips, a condition that can cause limited mobility and early-onset arthritis. As the pain worsened, it became difficult for Ms. Moskel to do simple tasks like put on her shoes or climb stairs.
After meeting with John Mercuri, MD, a Geisinger orthopaedic surgeon, Ms. Moskel had robotic-arm-assisted hip replacement surgery. Now she’s back on her feet — and often forgets she ever had hip pain.
Treatment for hip pain
Depending on the cause of your pain, your doctor may recommend non-surgical treatments, surgery or a combination of both.
The most common non-surgical hip pain treatment options are injections. These may include:
- Cortisone: Commonly known as a “steroid shot,” cortisone is injected directly into the sore joint to quickly ease pain and reduce inflammation.
- Gel injection: A gel injection is also called a hyaluronic acid injection or viscosupplementation. Hyaluronic acid is a fluid your body naturally produces to lubricate your joints. Your doctor injects the gel close to the joint to provide a fluid cushion around the joint to ease pain.
- Platelet-rich plasma injection: This is also called a PRP injection. A PRP injection uses platelets, or tiny pieces of cells, from your own blood to reduce pain and inflammation.
- Stem cell injection: Injecting stem cells from your own bone marrow or fat into the hip joint eases inflammation.
If you’re an active person who is 35 years old or younger, you may be a good candidate for our Hip Preservation Clinic. The clinic will work with you to find an alternative to hip replacement surgery, including these minimally invasive treatments:
- Hip resurfacing: A procedure that preserves worn or damaged cartilage or bone.
- Hip arthroscopy: A minimally invasive technique that helps repair hips.
- Osteotomy: A surgery to shift the hip inside the socket and relieve pain.
If you have pain while you’re moving and while you’re at rest, you and your doctor may decide surgery is the best option. You’ll be in good hands — Geisinger’s orthopaedic specialists perform hundreds of hip replacement surgeries each year.
- Total hip replacement: This involves removing damaged bone and cartilage around your hip and replacing them with ball-and-socket implants designed to replicate the human hip joint.
- Partial hip replacement: This surgery takes less operating time because your doctor replaces only the ball of your hip joint rather than the ball and socket.
The most common type of hip replacement surgery is a total hip replacement. It takes between one and three hours. Your orthopaedic specialist removes damaged cartilage and bone around the hip and replaces them with ball-and-socket implants designed to replicate your hip joint. The prosthetic joint, a combination of high-grade metal and plastic components, will be attached to your bone and padded with plastic to minimize friction.
Your Geisinger orthopaedic surgeon will choose an implant design that best fits you, based on your lifestyle habits and how much your hip joint has deteriorated.
Robotic arm–assisted surgery, including Mako® robotic-assisted procedures, are minimally invasive. They relieve pain, restore mobility and can help you return to an active lifestyle faster.
During a robotic arm-assisted hip replacement surgery, your orthopaedic surgeon uses CT scanning to create 3D images of your joint before the surgery. They’ll use these images to plan the procedure. During surgery, your doctor will guide the robotic arm to remove diseased bone and cartilage, then insert your total or partial hip implant.
A robotic arm does not independently perform your surgery. It can’t make decisions on its own or move without the surgeon’s guidance.
Minimally invasive procedures, like Mako® robotic arm-assisted surgery, make it easier to experience better results with less scarring and downtime.
Less-invasive hip replacement procedures shorten healing and rehabilitation times. Average hospital stays after hip replacement surgery are as short as two nights. Some patients can even go home the day of their surgery.
Shortly after surgery, your nurses and rehabilitation team will get you started with simple exercises to jump-start your muscles and get your blood flowing. Your care team will give you a list of specific goals you’ll need to reach before heading home from the hospital. These include getting in and out of bed without help, walking up and down several steps and performing exercises with the help of a cane or walker.
After you’re discharged from the hospital, you can stay connected to your surgeon and care team through our Force Therapeutics web program and mobile app. This program lets your doctor keep track of your progress and recovery daily. Force Therapeutics provides exercise and educational videos, as well as a portal to message your Geisinger team.
The majority of hip replacements can last a lifetime. Research shows that most people who have hip replacement surgery experience less pain, better range of motion and good function more than 15 years after surgery.
Best of all, when you receive a hip replacement at Geisinger, we’ll stand behind your surgery for a lifetime. This means that if you need any follow-up care related to your surgery, Geisinger and Medacta International (an international orthopaedics company specializing in the design and production of innovative orthopaedic products) will pay for the full cost of care, as long as you remain in the care of a Geisinger provider and have Geisinger Health Plan insurance. This guarantee is the first of its kind in the world.
Why choose Geisinger for hip pain treatments?
If the source of your hip pain hasn’t been diagnosed, or if you’ve received a diagnosis but would like a second opinion, you can schedule a consultation with a member of Geisinger’s orthopaedics team. Our specialists and surgeons offer:
Experienced joint pain care
When an orthopaedic team treats thousands of patients and performs hundreds of surgeries every year, you know you’re in good hands. And everything we do at Geisinger is backed by nationally renowned expertise and innovation.
Better, faster healing
Our ProvenCare® program can assist your healing by identifying and consistently providing treatment. With ProvenCare, you’ll spend less time in the hospital and recover faster.
Leading specialty care
Turn to Geisinger for specialty orthopaedic care. No matter the cause of your joint pain, the right specialists with the right specialized skills are here to ease it.
Range of treatments
Depending on your diagnosis, you have options for reducing joint pain, from non-invasive treatments like medications and physical therapy to orthopaedic surgery. Many of our joint replacement surgeries are backed by our ProvenCare program.
Specialized athletic care
Ready to get back to walking, running, swimming, biking, dancing and playing — pain free? Then you’ll love our focus on sports medicine. Here, we don’t just treat injuries. We help athletes properly rehab to avoid developing joint pain in the future.
