I’m sorry that happened to you…bursitis can be really painful. I’m glad you got a diagnosis. Hopefully your PT can provide you with guidance with a specific diagnosis now?

I’ve also had hip bursitis, but on the lateral side (tronchater bursitis I think it’s called?), not by my hamstrings. It might help to discuss with an orthopedist, your PT, or physiatrist, about your specific situation and what they think may have caused it. But it’s my understanding bursitis is usually caused by overuse…so it could be doing “too much, too fast,” or too soon with PT or hiking. I could totally see myself getting a flareup of bursitis with trail walking because of the uneven ground (because I am susceptible to things like this that require a lot of core/hip/pelvis stability).

In my case, I have hypermobility spectrum disorder (HSD), which causes joint instability so I need a lot of strength in my muscles to support my joints or they get fatigued easily, I lose optimal alignment…and can get bursitis easily, no matter the joint. I have had a Lot of these kinds of injuries.

Eventually, I overcame the pain by doing “active rest,” so avoiding or minimizing activities or exercises that irritated it excessively, but still doing gentle PT and physical activity. Bursitis is inflammation of the bursa caused by too much of…something, so you kind of have to find a way to reduce the irritation to get the inflammation down. Medications can help with that, but that only helps so much if you keep doing activities that ratchet up the irritation again.

I would probably say it took around 6-8 weeks for the pain to go away so much that I’d forget about it? It’s hard to say for me because I have chronic pain conditions; some of it blends together.

I still had pain and moved around, but tried not to do things that caused the pain to increased more than 2 points on the pain scale for more than 24-48 hours (per my PT).

That improved the pain over time, but I still need hip and glute strengthening to stabilize my hips and pelvis to prevent it from happening again.

I don’t get much leverage out of medications personally (because of my underlying medical conditions), and I don’t tolerate meds well, so I didn’t really take anything. I’m glad the diclofenac topical is helping you. My go-to was topical peppermint oil (I like the smell over Icy-Hot or Biofreeze) and k-tape works really well for me.

It can take a while, but it can get better, or at least that was my experience.

Wishing you all the best!

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