Witterings

I've had both my hips replaced and rode for 1 1/2 yrs without any issues at all but very recently am getting quite a lot of pain .... not when cycling itself but 2 to 3 days later.

We were regularly doing 20 and 30 miles rides at the weekends on the flat and ten started jumping up to 40 miles with hills, one day I decided to go that bit extra and did about 48 miles but the last 3 miles I knew it wasn't feeling great and it's got worse since.

I'd just had a 2 1/2 week rest due to a cough and bad weather and the symptoms had gone but also coincided with me buying a gravel bike coming from a 29er. The 1st ride on the new bike and it seemed OK but I felt very squashed up, this may be as I've always suspected my 29er was too big for me and I was properly measured before ordering the new bike but I put the saddle up for the next ride and 3 days later am in a lot of discomfort.

Does anyone know if a saddle being too high or too low is more likely to cause an issue with the hips, I also wonder if it wasn't helped by leaning further forward on drops which I'm not used to.

MoAlpha

The amazing thing about this place is that people are actually going to generate specific, honestly held, opinions on this question and post them.

canklecat

Video yourself riding. See if your hips are rocking. You might try mounting a camera on the handlebar aimed backward toward your hips. That's how I discovered my saddle was too high.

Lower the saddle a bit. A little at a time.
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Check your padding, saddle and shorts. Sometimes too much or too little causes me problems.

Gear down and spin while seated.

Gear up, stand to pedal occasionally for a few seconds or however long you can.

Don't take too many days off. Add some indoor range of motion and stretching to your daily routine. Do 15 minutes on an indoor trainer, taking it easy. Just get the blood flowing. Helps my chronic pain. The body and brain produce great pain and stress relievers, but don't overdo it on recovery days.

Besides the usual oral NSAIDs, try an injection of anti-inflammatory and/or steroids. Made a huge difference in my recovery from a shoulder injury and more recent respiratory infection and inflammation.

The best topical analgesic for the money that I've tried is Stopain roll-on. Works quickly. Costs $10 or less.

Next best is Ted's Pain Cream. Google their website for details. It's developed by neuroscientists at UNT Dallas. They explain the theory with credibility. Basically, the idea is to reset nerves reacting to phantom pain, without covering up pain that's a legitimate warning of injury or illness. It's slow acting but sure works for me.

I combine Stopain and Ted's.

If any topical analgesic doesn't contain MSM, don't bother. Methyl Sulfonyl Methane helps penetrate the skin and deliver the analgesic to the hyper-sensitized nerves just under the skin. No skin rash like DMSO.

Hope this helps.

Phil_gretz

Who knows? I would recommend that you begin to work with an exercise physiologist and/or a sports physical therapist to isolate the location and source of the pain signals. Then determine what course of action will address the root cause.

It might be alignment. It might be knotted muscles impinging on nerves. It might be some other interaction within the joint. Don't ask us to do this work. We're not physically with you.

WaveyGravey

Being that you have had replacement surgery, you should go to your Doctor to be checked. The artificial hips don't last forever.

Having said that, it may simply be a case of needing more stretching prior to the ride.

PaulRivers

When I've done something that leaves me feeling tightened up, it's helped me to go to the gym and sit in the hot tub for 5 minutes, then walk around in the warmer pool for a while. The water makes you "weigh" less so if it's just something mildly out of place sometimes that lets your body get back into place.

Of course absolutely no one can really answer your question here. Unfortunately I haven't had a ton of success with PT's either but it's a good place to start.

Kedosto

This could be something stupid easy, or catastrophically dangerous to your health and well being. Unfortunately, a bicycle forum can't replace the diagnostic expertise of a trained professional. Considering your history, I suggest you seek out the advice of a medical expert.


-Kedosto

Clyde1820

Ditto, on the suggestion to speak in detail with your hip-replacement doctor.

As some have indicated, it could be a range of things. Alignment, or flexibility related to impacting alignment. Inflammation. Nerves impinged. Disk/spine issues (nerves). Degrading hip replacement related condition. Who knows, at this point.

Having had a bad injury many years ago, anytime I notice aches anywhere in the pelvic girdle region, I double-down on the PT exercises, stretching, posture considerations, and take some care for coping with potential inflammation. With aches tied to lack of flexibility, recent strength exercises and/or basic alignment, I'm often able to work it out myself. If it does get bad and my own basic tweaks don't improve things, I'm off to the doc to get a more-informed opinion based on test results. But, that's me, given my own years-ago injury. Everyone will be different, of course.

That all being said, it's amazing what frequent long soaks in very hot baths combined with massages can do, irrespective of whether it turns out to be a soft-tissue related thing. If you've got a decent tub, and if you've got someone in the household who can work out the kinks in the muscles, that alone might go a long way to combining with stretching and milder exercise to ease whatever your situation is. If not, there's always the doc.

Witterings

I totally get what people are saying but my thinking before I do that is having cycled for 1 1/2 yrs without issue until I started moving the saddle around and the fact that 2 1/2 weeks rest and it was back to 100% tends to say to it's probably muscle or tendon related and there's a high likelihood that's it's possibly aggravated by saddle position.
This has changed relatively recently and taking into consideration how long it gets to take a consultant in the UK (6 months bear minimum and more likely 1 year + ) .... in the 1st instance I think it's at least trying to carefully see if positioning on the bike may alleviate it even if I have to give it another few weeks rest before hand.

I have seen quite a few comments from people that contribute to the forum over the months where they've said "when I'm bike fitting" or "when I was a bike fitter" .... to have a starting point of either saddle too high OR saddle too low is more likely to cause an issue with a weak hip rather than me possibly going in the wrong direction and potentially making it worse still .... much like I believe leaning too far down is know to potentially cause neck ache and I can't remember which way round it is but saddle too low vs too high ... both can cause knee problems but the manifest in different areas.

Milton Keynes

Exactly. This seems like more of a question for the OP's doctor.

Clyde1820

About possibilities, thankfully there are. Many of which will be based on personal first-hand experiences with similar "aches & pains" in a given area.

Not that this represents people's explicit recommendations for a person's specific condition, of course. None can know, but the doctor and the individual, once it's found. But having ideas based firmly on the first-hand experiences of others in and of itself isn't a bad thing. At the very least, it can boost the number of questions to be asked, and inform of additional possibilities to consider.

MoAlpha

Even (s)he would be extremely unlikely to have anything useful to say, based on the information offered. Here is a quick subset of the follow-up questions an expert might ask:

What does "hip" mean here? Joint? Muscle? Upper thigh? Lateral pelvis?
What is the nature of the pain, e.g., dull-achy, or intense and highly localized?
Does it occur only with movement or persist after movement stops?
Is it present over the full pedal cycle or only part?
Is it relieved by changing position on the bike?

One might also examine the painful part physically.

Even then, a problem like this rarely has an obvious cause and some hypothesis testing and experimentation is usually required.

I only raise this because as someone with expert knowledge and letters after my name, I am confounded by the question.

Milton Keynes

You mean you can't diagnose over the internet?

MoAlpha

Can't even frame the issue constructively, but maybe that's my own problem.

canklecat

That's a valid consideration. If folks can afford specialists or are lucky enough to have access to an affordable sports medicine clinic, great. Many of us don't.

I'm getting excellent care for my basic health needs through the Veterans Administration. I just had surgery for thyroid cancer a couple of weeks ago and everything went well. The incision healed up quickly, no complications. After my follow-up consult with the surgeon and referral to an endocrinologist Wednesday, I stopped by the ER to get treated for a chronic sinus headache. Turns out my long neglected sinus congestion had turned into an infection with inflammation. They pumped me full of prednisone and sent me home with more prednisone and antibiotics. No cost to me.

But whenever I've asked questions about how something might affect bicycling or fitness, they mostly shrug and either say go ahead or take it easy or change the subject because they have limited time and our hobbies and activities are not directly relevant to their primary assignment -- fix the stuff that's broken. They did that and did it very well.

Welp, they did that. The rest is up to me. I can apply for the sports medicine clinic but it'll take awhile. It's lower priority and I'm a lower priority patient compared with my fellow veterans who have combat related disabilities. I'm not going to burden the system with my pursuits when those folks have greater needs.

So, sure, I'll read cycling forums, watch videos and tutorials on bike fitting and make my own adjustments and evaluate the results.

duffer1960

I bought a Brooks B17 & suffered horrible hip pain on one side after long rides. On closer inspection of the saddle, found that the nose wasn't aligned with the main/back/sit part. With the nose pointed straight ahead, the back was slightly off center. Centering the back solved it for me.

FBOATSB

To the OP, My internet medical advice is to use your internet to learn your own anatomy of your entire pelvic area. "Hip" means virtually nothing. So many nerves, bones, muscles, connective tissue, circulatory stuff, urological stuff, intestinal stuff, on and on.

Next, always carry whatever tools you need to make any minor saddle adjustments while out on a ride and listening to what your body is trying to tell you in real time. Sure beats riding home with increasing discomfort and pain.

fietsbob

Age.. you are getting older by the day..

ampmbike

Arthritis are among the most common causes of hip pain

Rajflyboy

Witterings

_ForceD_

Cuyuna

Not denigrate internet medical advice, but hip pain + bilateral THR = see an orthopaedic joint surgeon, preferably one that has access to your previous hip X-rays. And you should preferably do it before the component loosening (if that's what it is) damages the bone enough that it limits your surgeon's revision options.