Common Causes of Hip and Lower Back Pain

Hip pain is often caused by a problem with the alignment of the body. It can often be caused by a misalignment of the feet (such as an old ankle injury) or from the lower back. We frequently find that our clients have hips that are twisted, tilted or raised on one side. Because your spine is supported by your pelvis, if your hips are not in the correct position your spine will have to compensate, so it can cause problems almost anywhere along your spine, but especially in your lower back or neck. Just as the hips are used to balance the lower body, the shoulders are used to balance the upper body, so if the hips are out often the shoulders will be out as well.

Have a look at the picture to the right- you can see this person’s right hip is about one grid square higher than her left, and  because her hips are on an angle, the spine in her lower back starts going up at an angle to the left. It then has to bend back to the right to try and straighten her up. Also look at how her right shoulder is slightly to the left of her right hip, but her left shoulder is way to the left of her left hip. (If you look carefully, you might be able to see how tight the muscles are in her lower back, and in her upper back between her shoulder blades. Her right shoulder is also slightly higher than her left.)

Another possible cause of hip problems is the liver. The liver is on the right side of the body, underneath the lower ribs, and sometimes if the liver gets congested or irritated, the muscles over it can become tight, particularly below the right shoulder blade. (You can see a little of this in the above photo.) This can then pull the right hip up or the right shoulder down, putting the body out of alignment, and could cause lower back, hip, neck or shoulder problems.

So for structural problems,

• Most muscle or joint pain occurs when the body is out of alignment, and correcting the alignment will often resolve the pain
• Congestion in the liver can cause a distortion in the body, which may lead to neck, shoulder, back, hip, knee, or sciatic problems
• There may be other factors that have to be addressed as well, especially inflammation
• Sometimes there is not much improvement until all of the important causes are addressed
• Even when there is no more pain, if there are still alignment issues, it is a good idea to have additional treatments to correct these, otherwise the problem will tend to recur

With the right diagnosis and treatment, the majority of back, neck, hip and shoulder problems can become a thing of the past.