Yes, a chiropractor can help fix snapping hip syndrome by addressing underlying biomechanical issues, improving muscle flexibility and strength with exercises, performing joint mobilizations, and releasing muscle tension to reduce snapping and pain, often as part of a conservative management plan alongside rest and activity modification. They focus on correcting posture, movement patterns, and imbalances that contribute to the condition, potentially using techniques like myofascial release or recommending orthotics for gait issues.
Your chiropractor can help you learn about pandiculation and how it can effectively rewire your nervous system, loosen tight muscles, and relieve symptoms related to snapping hip syndrome. Preventing tension buildup in our muscles helps us maintain a healthy posture and efficient movement.
Chiropractors use spinal and joint manipulation to realign the hip. They use controlled pressure on the targeted misaligned spine and pelvis joint. That's how they guide them back to alignment. This can reduce discomfort and improve posture.
Piriformis stretch
Physical therapy: Strengthening your muscles and increasing your hip flexibility might make the snapping go away. A physical therapist will give you exercises and stretches to help your hips move smoothly.
The most common cause of snapping hip syndrome is tightness in the muscles and tendons surrounding the hip. Sometimes, a loose piece of cartilage, a cartilage tear or pieces of broken cartilage or bone in the joint space can cause the snapping sound.
The hips are a common storage site for emotions related to fear, anxiety, sadness, and trauma. Yoga, with its focus on hip opening and mindfulness, offers a powerful tool for releasing these stored emotions.
Hip joint synovitis, or inflammation of the hip joint's membrane lining, which causes swelling and symptoms that sometimes mimic those of snapping hip syndrome.
Deep tissue massage can be helpful, but the focus should be on stretching the hip flexors, abductors, and IT band, as well as strengthening the gluteal (“butt”) and core muscles. Persistent cases may warrant a course of formal physical therapy.
Patients with herniated or slipped discs and those with arthritis may need advice from specialist physicians before seeing a chiropractor. If there is a physical abnormality or injury in your body, such as a fracture, chiropractic care may not be for you.
How Does Hip Misalignment Affect Me?
Chiropractor red flags include high-pressure sales for long-term plans, "cure-all" claims (e.g., for cancer, infections), lack of a thorough initial exam, cookie-cutter treatments, and fear tactics, alongside personal symptoms like worsening numbness/tingling, severe weakness, or loss of bowel/bladder control, which need medical referral, not adjustment. A good chiropractor performs a full assessment, explains diagnoses, uses evidence-based practices, and coordinates with other doctors, while a bad one pushes unnecessary services or ignores signs of serious underlying conditions.
Treatment for Snapping Hip Syndrome
In other cases, physical therapy may be utilized to stretch and strengthen the muscles in the affected area. Over-the-counter medication can be used if there is pain and inflammation. In some cases, corticosteroids and surgery may be used to provide patients with relief.
Hip discomfort can arise from a variety of causes, including joint inflammation, muscle strain, or misalignment in the pelvis and lower back. Early evaluation by a chiropractor can help identify the source of pain, provide relief, and prevent further complications.
Red flags for hip pain needing urgent attention include sudden, severe pain after injury, inability to bear weight, significant swelling/redness/warmth, night pain disrupting sleep, fever, unexplained weight loss, night sweats, neurological symptoms (weakness/numbness), or a history of cancer, as these can signal serious issues like fractures, infections, or malignancy, requiring prompt medical evaluation beyond typical muscle soreness.
Exercise and stretching may help fix a snapping hip and bring relief. A physical therapist helps stretch and strengthen the muscles that support your hip bones.
About 5 percent of the population has this condition. Although it can affect anyone, the snapping hip syndrome is seen to be more common in people between the ages 15 and 40. The snapping hip syndrome usually occurs as a result of tightness in the muscles and tendons that surround the hip.
A chiropractor can help treat the symptoms of snapping hip syndrome by correcting body movement issues, prescribing specific exercises to strengthen the hip and surrounding muscles, and ordering shoe supports or insoles.
The labrum that lines the socket of the hip can tear and cause a snapping sensation. Damaged cartilage can loosen and float in the joint causing the hip to catch or "lock up." Even though this is not a true snapping hip caused by a muscle outside the joint, some of the symptoms may be similar.
Symptoms
Coxa saltans, or "snapping hip," has several causes. These can be divided into three types: external, internal, and intra-articular.
“There is absolutely truth to the idea that hip-opening yoga classes can make us emotional because we store unmet trauma and emotion in our pelvic space,” explains Meffan.
The sacral chakra is associated with the color orange and the element of water. When the sacral chakra is blocked, it can affect your hips, kidneys, pelvis, sexual organs, and lower back.
Whenever you experience something shocking, traumatic, or that you (consciously or subconsciously) perceive as a threat, your psoas muscle constricts and 'locks in' the tension in the body. Once the tension energy is contracted into the body it stays there.