What Is Bursitis? Inflammation of a Bursa Explained

You have more than 150 bursae in your body. Most of the time you never notice them. They sit quietly at your joints and act as a slippery cushion, so tendons and muscles glide smoothly over bone. But when one becomes inflamed, the pain can be surprisingly sharp and persistent.

Bursitis is often treated as a simple overuse injury. Rest, ice, anti-inflammatory medicines. That works for many people. But when bursitis keeps coming back, or when standard treatment does not settle it, there is usually a deeper question worth asking: why is that particular bursa under so much stress in the first place?

What does bursitis feel like?

Bursitis usually causes a dull ache or tenderness around the affected joint. It often gets worse with movement or pressure. You may also notice swelling, warmth or stiffness in the area.

What causes bursitis?

Bursitis is most often caused by repeated movement or constant pressure on a joint. But poor overall alignment is a trigger that is often overlooked. When your body is out of balance, some joints take more load than they should, and the bursae at those joints pay the price.

Your body works as a connected chain, from your feet up through your knees, hips, spine and head. When one part is out of position, other parts compensate. A subtle imbalance in the pelvis, for example, may overload the bursa at your hip or knee. That is why the pain often shows up away from its true cause.

Where does bursitis happen most often?

Bursitis can develop at almost any joint, but some sites are far more common than others. These are the areas most often affected.

How does standing imaging help with bursitis?

Standing whole-body imaging shows your skeleton under the same pull of gravity you live with every day. This matters because bursitis is often a symptom of a wider alignment problem that only appears when you are upright and bearing weight.

When you lie down for a standard X-ray, CT or MRI, your muscles relax and the pressure on your joints eases. A difference in leg length, a pelvic tilt, or a small shift in the way your knee tracks over your foot can all flatten out on the table, and the scan looks normal. But when you stand up, those same imbalances come back, and one bursa takes most of the strain.

An EOS scan captures your full skeleton from head to feet in a single standing image, using about 90% less radiation than a standard X-ray, around ten times less. Your consultant can then see the complete alignment picture and understand whether a structural imbalance is adding to the irritation of the bursa.

What helps manage bursitis?

Most bursitis settles with simple, conservative steps. Rest, avoiding the activity that makes it worse, ice and anti-inflammatory medicines you can buy without a prescription are the standard first approach. Physiotherapy can also help strengthen the muscles around the joint and reduce future flare-ups.

When bursitis comes back despite these steps, the question changes from "how do I calm this down?" to "why does it keep happening?" That is where understanding your overall alignment becomes useful. If a structural imbalance is quietly overloading one side of your body, addressing the alignment problem may reduce the repeated stress on the affected bursa.

ScanAlign is a diagnostic imaging clinic. It does not provide treatment. What it does provide is the detailed alignment information your treating clinician needs to plan the next step, whether that involves physiotherapy, orthotics, injection therapy or referral for surgery.

Before you start treatment, or change the one you are on, it is worth getting a detailed diagnosis. Knowing whether the cause sits in your pelvis, your legs or your spine changes what will actually help.

To learn more about what the imaging involves, visit the EOS scan overview.

Frequently asked questions about bursitis