Where to See Dr. Tortland in Connecticut
Dr. Paul Tortland, DO provides comprehensive orthopedic evaluations for patients at his Glastonbury, CT office. The practice sees patients from Glastonbury, Hartford, West Hartford, Farmington, Simsbury, South Windsor, and other Connecticut and New England communities.
📍 59 Sycamore Street, Suite 301, Glastonbury, CT 06033 — Get directions
📞 (860) 430-2821
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Do I Have to Choose Between Living With Hip Pain and Getting a Replacement?
Hip pain in an active adult often gets treated as an either/or decision: live with it, or eventually have it replaced. There's real space between those two options, and for patients with mild to moderate hip osteoarthritis, non-surgical care deserves a genuine trial before surgery enters the conversation.
What Non-Surgical Treatments Are Available for Hip Osteoarthritis?
Conservative measures — activity modification, targeted strengthening of the hip stabilizers and glutes, and weight management where relevant — remain the foundation, the same way they are for knee arthritis. When those aren't enough on their own, injection therapy is often the next reasonable step, and PRP is one of the better-studied options for the hip specifically.
How Effective Is PRP for Hip Osteoarthritis?
A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis pooling seven studies and 465 hip osteoarthritis patients compared PRP against hyaluronic acid injections. PRP showed a statistically significant advantage in reducing pain at 6 months, and patients' overall symptom scores were better in the PRP group compared to hyaluronic acid.
Will PRP Improve My Hip's Function, or Just Reduce Pain?
Function scores, however, didn't show a significant difference between PRP and hyaluronic acid in this same research — meaning PRP tended to help patients hurt less, without necessarily moving the needle on how the joint mechanically performed. That's an important, honest distinction. Pain relief and functional improvement aren't the same thing, and a treatment that meaningfully reduces one doesn't automatically deliver the other.
How Big a Difference Does PRP Actually Make?
The review's authors were candid that the effect size, while real, was moderate rather than dramatic — this isn't a treatment that reliably transforms a hip, but for the right patient it can meaningfully reduce pain without surgery. Setting expectations accurately matters as much as the treatment decision itself.
How Long Should I Try Non-Surgical Care Before Considering Hip Replacement?
This varies by individual, but conservative care and injection therapy are typically given a genuine trial — often several months to a year — before surgery becomes the primary conversation, assuming symptoms remain manageable and function doesn't decline significantly during that window.
Can I Stay Active With Hip Osteoarthritis?
Many patients continue hiking, golfing, and other activities with appropriate non-surgical management, though activity modification may be part of the plan. In our practice, many hip osteoarthritis patients arrive having already modified their activity and tried over-the-counter anti-inflammatories on their own, without lasting relief — which is often the point where a conversation about injection therapy becomes reasonable. For patients trying to stay active — hiking, golfing, playing with grandchildren, or simply getting through a workday without hip pain dominating it — realistic, incremental relief is often exactly what's needed to buy time and stay functional, without committing to a major operation before it's truly necessary.
Limitations: What This Research Does Not Show
The review described above found a moderate, not dramatic, benefit — and it has its own limits.
- PRP showed a pain advantage over hyaluronic acid at 6 months in this pooled analysis, but function scores did not significantly differ between the two treatments.
- Pooling seven studies means results reflect group averages; individual response to PRP for hip osteoarthritis varies and is not guaranteed.
- This evidence applies to mild-to-moderate hip osteoarthritis treated with injection therapy — it does not address advanced, bone-on-bone disease, where surgery is often the appropriate recommendation.
- How long non-surgical care should be tried before considering replacement varies by individual and cannot be determined from this article alone.
Dr. Tortland's Perspective
"Hip arthritis gets less attention than knee arthritis in most regenerative medicine conversations, but I see just as many patients frustrated by it," says Dr. Tortland. Drawing on three decades of treating joint pain non-surgically — he founded his practice in 1995 and added PRP in 2007 — he's direct about where the evidence currently stands for the hip specifically. "The research on PRP for hip arthritis shows a real pain benefit, but I don't oversell it as a function fix, because the data doesn't support that yet," he says. "What I tell patients is that a moderate, honest benefit that keeps them golfing or hiking for another year or two is still a meaningful outcome — it just isn't a cure, and I'm not going to pretend it is."
Reference
According to PubMed: Zhang D, Ma SH, Wang HL, Han QH, Shen K, Zhuang W. Comparison of Clinical Efficiency and Safety Between Intra-Articular Injection of Platelet-Rich Plasma and Hyaluronic Acid for Hip Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Pain Res Manag. 2026. DOI: 10.1155/prm/6521682
Related condition guide: For a broader look at symptoms, diagnosis and treatment considerations, see Hip Osteoarthritis.
