I have pain in my back and hip areas also. Mine is due to a combination of inflamation, muscle spasms, and a mysterious autoimmune problem that hasn't been named yet (the best they can tell me is that it is some sort of connective tissue disease).

I take meds, long-acting narcotics, short-acting narcotics, and daily low-dose prednisone for the inflamation because I can not take traditional anti-inflamatories like Advil, Aleve, and Celebrex. I also have Lidoderm patches.

The meds help to some degree, but not enough.

Some of the things I have found that does help my back and hip pain a lot is to always be aware of my posture, always be aware of how I am moving my body.... but the biggest help was making changes in how I sleep (body position, good pillows in the right places, memory foam mattress topper, a "comfort-u" body pillow).

If I sleep in a more comfortable position, I have fewer muscle spasms, and less inflamation - and less pain. When I first started experimenting with sleeping positions I kept finding positions that were body-comfortable, but that I had a hard time sleeping in because of a life-long habit of sleeping in bad positions. So, it did take some adjustment time to get in the habit of sleeping in positions that were better for my body -- but once I adjusted to the changes I felt so much better.

Hope that helps,
Liz