A Pain in the

A man walks into a doctor's office with a duck on his head.

"Can I help you?" asks the doctor.

"Yeah, can you get this guy off my ass," replies the duck.

Sorry. Relevance? Probably none except that the pain in my left hip that started in February's marathon hasn't gone away despite laying off running for 7 weeks. It's back with a vengeance now that I've started running again. I thought it was a muscle strain, but I think I've ruled that out. I thought maybe it was nerve pain, but I think I've ruled that out because there is local tenderness. One possibility is ITB syndrome. The iliotibial band is a ligament that runs from your hip to your knee on the outside of your leg. It often gets tight in runners and usually presents with pain on the outside of the knee, but it can cause hip pain too. But ITB stretches and exercises don't seem to help. My last choice is hip bursitis and that is what I think I'm suffering from. There is a small area of tenderness right on the point of the hip that feels "lumpy" as I massage it. So, I'm laying off running again, taking ibuprofen, massaging it, and doing hip stretches and exercises. It doesn't bother me so much during the day, but right now it aches at night and keeps waking me up.