What We Treat

Hip & Knee Pain Treatment in Lakewood.

The stairs you now take one at a time. The hip that wakes you at two in the morning every time you roll over. Hips and knees share the work, so the one that hurts isn’t always the one at fault. A cause-first evaluation tells you which is which.

Knee arthritis Hip stiffness Pain down the leg Talk to a Specialist

Sound Familiar?

Does this sound like you?

  • Taking the stairs one at a time, leading with the same leg every time
  • The hip that wakes you up every time you roll onto that side
  • Getting out of a low chair with both hands on the armrests
  • A knee that puffs up by evening after a normal day on your feet
  • Pain that runs from your hip down the back of your leg
  • Parking closer to the door and calling it convenience

Two or more? Keep reading. None of that is just your age doing its thing.

Why It Happens

Your knee hurts. That doesn’t make it the problem.

Hips and knees share muscles and nerves. When one gets weak or stiff, the other quietly picks up the extra work. So the joint that complains is often not the joint at fault. Usually a few things have stacked up: muscles that went weak on one side and tight on the other, one leg sitting slightly longer than the other, which loads the pelvis and the knee unevenly, years of the same running, lifting or kneeling, and cartilage that has thinned out over time. Sometimes a stiff joint or a tight muscle presses on the sciatic nerve, and that’s the pain running down the back of your leg.

You’ve been working around this for a while. That’s what people who take care of everyone else do. But a cause-first evaluation sorts out which joint is driving the pain and which one is only compensating, and that’s the whole difference between managing this and fixing it.

Physical therapist assessing hip and knee movement during a walking evaluation

The Honest Truth

Waiting it out is a plan. Just not a good one.

If you keep waiting

  • You shift more weight onto the good leg, and the good leg starts speaking up
  • The long walk, the stairs and the yard work come off the list one at a time
  • The muscles that hold the joint steady get less work, and get less strong for it

If you start this week

  • You find out which joint is actually driving it, by the end of visit one
  • Hands-on joint work starts before you leave the building
  • You get a plan with an endpoint, plus gait retraining so the pattern stops repeating

Nobody regrets starting too early. Plenty of people wish they hadn’t waited.

How We Fix It

Four phases. Two joints. One plan.

Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what the four phases look like for a hip or a knee, one-on-one with a licensed physical therapist, every visit.

First visits

Pain

Settle the joint down.

Manual therapy and joint mobilization take the pressure off the irritated joint and bring the inflammation down, starting your very first visit.

Early in your plan

Prime

Get the motion back.

Mobility work restores the range the joint gave up while you were guarding it, and frees the tight muscles that have been pulling on it.

Middle of your plan

Perform

Make it strong enough to trust.

Progressive strengthening for the hip and the knee together, because the weak link is usually not the part that hurts.

The endpoint

Prevent

Fix the pattern, not just the pain.

Gait retraining, a warm-up you’ll actually do, and mobility drills that protect the joint long term. Stairs, curbs and getting off a low couch get tested before you’re done. That’s the endpoint, not another appointment.

Related Conditions

Pain rarely stays in one place.

When one joint stops pulling its weight, the next one covers for it. Here’s what else we treat.

1

Arthritis

Joints that ache to get going and stiffen the moment you sit still.

Learn More 2

Back Pain & Sciatica

Bracing on the counter just to stand up straight in the morning.

Learn More 3

Pre & Post Surgery

Going in stronger, and getting back to normal after without guessing.

Learn More

Questions, Answered

What people ask before booking for hip and knee pain.

Usually it’s the opposite. Joints tend to do better with the right amount of the right movement, and worse with none at all. The work starts at a level your joint can handle and gets harder only once it has earned it. If something flares you up, we adjust it that visit. You will not be handed a printout and told to push through it.

Two clear signals: swelling or restricted movement after a fall, and pain that has hung around for weeks or months despite rest. Pain that radiates down your leg is worth having looked at too. You don’t need a referral to start. California Direct Access lets you attend physical therapy for up to 45 days or 12 visits, whichever comes first, before a physician sign-off is needed.

You’ll know at the end of visit one, because the plan comes with an endpoint attached. As a general guideline, 2–3 visits a week for 4–6 weeks is what gets the most out of care, and that’s a guideline, not a promise. Sessions run 30–60 minutes. We accept 14 insurance plans and check your benefits before you start, so nothing about the cost is a surprise later.

Book Your Visit

Ready when you are.

Request a time and a real person calls you back during business hours. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.

  • Hours Monday–Friday, 9:00 AM–5:00 PM
  • (562) 512-3320 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
  • No doctor’s referral needed to start

We call back during business hours, Monday to Friday

Step 1 of 5

So we know who to look for when you walk in.

Visit Us

Care this good, this close.

The PT People

Take Me There (opens in a new tab) Call Us