In this episode, Stephanie Mayer, MD, joins us to share her insights on diagnosing hip pain in pediatric patients. We're discussing this issue from its symptoms and causes to how to manage hip pain.

Dr. Mayer is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Children's Colorado and an assistant professor of orthopedics at the CU School of Medicine.

In this episode:

• The common hip pain causes to watch for in adolescents
• Sports that lend themselves to hip pain
• Practices for starting an evaluation of the patient and their injury
• The importance of the patient history when dealing with and considering hip pain
• The questions to ask, signs to look for and specifics to consider when diagnosing hip pain and differentiating between infection and oncologic hip injuries
• Signs and factors possibly indicating a patient's hip pain is systemic or rheumatological and when it's time to look for Lyme disease
• How to determine where hip pain originates from and the conditions to consider
• The mechanical indicator that the cause of hip pain is slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE)
• Diagnosing and addressing other causes of hip pain such as Legg-Calvé-Perthes
• Discussing urgency and when it's time to refer to an orthopedic specialist
• When and why it's appropriate to order an MRI early on
• The central role imaging plays in determining a proper hip pain treatment and when it's the right time to order an x-ray for hip pain
• The benefits of getting images of the entire hip versus radiation exposure