Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome - SO much more than just bursitis

By Mehmet Gem

I think it is a fair synopsis of lateral hip pain when I say that I am bored of having to tell people each week that their lateral hip pain is not a bursitis caused by their ITB being too tight. It’s probably time to leave that back in 1999 with my Nokia 3210.

The purpose of this article is to clarify some salient points about Greater Trochanteric Pain Syndrome (GTPS) that I personally feel are still missed too often, to the point that I am sitting here wanting to write about it (aka being forced under duress by Jack x2).

Lateral hip pain is seldom to do with the bursa, yet still we receive referrals day in and day out that kindly ask us to help this and that patient with their bursitis. Just think, only 2% of the time is the bursa the sole primary cause for lateral hip pain (1), with the gluteus medius/minimus tendons more often the main culprit. So why are so many still being told they have bursitis? Also whilst I’m here, why does everyone still get given loads of stretches for their glute tendinopathy/‘bursitis’ when we know that those movements and exercises can provoke pain? (2) It’s by no coincidence that these forms of compressive loading also underpin a lot of how we assess our patients to try and refute that working hypothesis during our appointment.