Hip Pain at Night: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments

Hip pain at night can make it more difficult to sleep, but the effects don't stop there. Twisting and turning to find a more comfortable position to sleep in combined with lack of sleep can contribute to health and quality of life issues that you experience during the day, too.

Hip pain can prevent you from exercising or being active, but it can also be a sign of potentially serious health conditions. It's important for your healthcare provider to identify the cause, so you can receive an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan.

This article presents six possible causes for hip pain at night, along with some ways to relieve the discomfort. It will also help you understand possible treatments and ways to prevent hip pain in the future.

Verywell / Theresa Chiechi

Hip pain can emerge for various reasons. If a simple injury or a temporary condition like pregnancy is the cause, the pain usually resolves on its own.

But some people experience chronic pain in their hip joints from osteoarthritis, bursitis, or other conditions. In fact, around 20% of people over the age of 65 report chronic hip pain.

When your hip joints swell or become inflamed, the pain and stiffness can disrupt your sleep. Chronic pain can lead to symptoms of burning or aching, or the feeling of pins and needles (parasthesia).

Your sleep position may contribute to your hip pain. That's not uncommon for people who sleep on either their left or right sides. These sleeping positions can affect the body's alignment and place stress on joints.

A pillow or padding placed at the knees can help to lift the top leg. This helps to keep your hip and knee aligned, which may reduce the strain on your hip muscles and your hip joint.

Osteoarthritis is a common condition that develops with normal use over time, as cartilage and bone degrade within and at the hip joints. Osteoarthritis is a progressive disorder, with occasional stiffness or pain at stage 2 and chronic pain, stiffness, and loss of mobility at stage 4. It's very common for sleep disruptions to affect people with stage 4 hip osteoarthritis.

Like osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic condition. However, RA doesn’t involve the aging or weathering of joint tissue. Instead, patients with RA have an autoimmune condition that attacks the tissue in their joints.

RA symptoms can progress over time, but many patients experience pain in their hips and groin. This pain can contribute to insomnia and other sleep issues.

Treatment for these long-term conditions is available but they cannot be completely reversed. A healthcare provider can help you manage your individual symptoms and cope with your hip pain.

Hip bursitis can cause similar symptoms to arthritis, but bursitis is a temporary condition. Patients with bursitis may feel stiffness or pain when they move, but not because the cartilage between their joints has degraded. Instead, the bursa becomes inflamed.

The bursa is a sac of fluid that cushions joints throughout the body, including at the hip. The inflammation near the outside of the hip can be quite painful. Bursitis is more common in sports enthusiasts, dancers, and other active people, as are stress fractures.

Two types of hip bursitis include:

Healthcare providers may diagnose greater trochanteric pain syndrome (GTPS), which affects the bursa, tendons, and muscles at the hip.

Physical therapy is commonly used to treat hip bursitis.

Some of the changes to a pregnant person's body affect the hip, including range of motion and hip flexion and extension. Though temporary, these changes affect walking and mobility, and how other joints (like the knee) are aligned with the hips. They also affect sleep.

Hip tendonitis typically occurs because of an overuse injury, leading to inflammation of the tendons attached to hip muscles that move the leg up and down. The tendonitis or tendon tear often occurs with another condition, such as bursitis, as part of a syndrome like GTPS.

Hip tendons also are implicated in snapping hip syndrome, which can cause a popping sound or sensation when the affected hip moves. Its most common cause is an injury to the iliotibial (IT) band at the outside of the hip joint.

Sleep disruption is a hallmark of tendon damage at the hip and, in some cases, a GTPS diagnosis, especially with people who are side sleepers.

Piriformis syndrome is thought to occur when the sciatic nerve is trapped or pinched by the piriformis muscle and tendon, found behind the hip joint at the buttocks. It can be caused by variations in anatomy unique to your body, or by muscle spasm, trauma, or an enlarged muscle.

The pain of piriformis syndrome may lead to sleep disruptions, which may improve with lifestyle changes like sleeping on your back or choosing a different mattress or pillows.

There are steps you can take to try and relieve hip pain at night. They range from immediate actions, like taking an over-the-counter pain medication, to long-term interventions.

You can try a hot or cold compress at your hip, or take some Tylenol (acetaminophen) or another other pain reliever for less severe episodes. Other measures you can try include:

Certain lifestyle changes may help alleviate or prevent hip pain. You can:

You also may consider an alternative medicine approach to complement other hip pain treatments, such as acupuncture or CBD supplement use.

Certain factors that may contribute to hip pain at night can't be changed, such as age-related risk or a family history that makes a genetic autoimmune condition more likely to contribute to arthritis.

But there are things you can do to avoid hip pain. Be sure to:

You may be able to limit your hip pain at night by following good overall sleep hygiene practices, as well as taking steps to prevent hip injury or aggravation.

This means choosing the right mattress, creating the optimal sleep environment in terms of sound and temperature, and limiting screen time or other factors known to interfere with sleep.

Your hip pain may be part of a disturbed sleep pattern that's causing a cycle of frustration, exhaustion, and joint aches.

If your pain lasts several days and/or prevents you from doing your normal tasks, then you may want to visit a healthcare provider for a diagnosis, especially if you can't bear weight on your hip or have trouble walking.

Your provider's assessment may include:

Hip pain at night is disruptive and affects your quality of life. It may happen because of a simple stress injury that resolves quickly with rest and over-the-counter pain relief.

Hip pain also may be a sign of a more serious condition, including osteoarthritis or bursitis that's part of a broader syndrome affecting the hip joint.

While there are many causes for hip pain, your healthcare provider can help you with a diagnosis. It's likely that lifestyle changes, medication, and/or physical therapy can help you to manage hip pain at night, although other interventions may be needed.

Cancer that affects the hip can cause hip pain. In some cases, hip pain may be felt on and off throughout the day and get worse at night. A few other symptoms of hip cancer include night sweats, swelling, fever, chills, thirst, weakness, joint pain, nausea, and enlarged lymph nodes.

The best or preferred sleeping position for hip pain will differ from one person to another. If you have hip pain on your left side, then sleeping on your right side may offer relief, and vice-versa. Try placing a pillow between your knees when sleeping this way. If your hip hurts while sleeping on your side, try sleeping on your back with a pillow beneath your knees.