Growing Pains - literally! Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[hmsch4me]

My ds, age 14, has been experiencing pains in his knees. He has trouble running, bending, etc. from the aches. He is tall and has grown over 4" in the last year. Has anyone else's dc had this type of pain?

[Emmy]

My oldest son has growing pains when he spurts. He's only 8 though -so hasn't even hit the puberty growth spurts. I give him motrin for it but it's never lasted for more than a day or two - usually just hurts him at night.

[Crissy]

Yes. I don't believe it is unusual.

My son has been growing so quickly he often experiences such pains and he has stretch marks on his knees.

[Amy in Orlando]

Two of my sons have these - the oldest has had them off and on since he was about 6 and my youngest started at about 6.

 

Ibuprofen, alternating ice and heat will help. My oldest grew about 6" over one summer and it was miserable. One thing I learned here (and my ped backed up) was to have the avoid strenuous stuff (in our case Tae Kwon Do) when the pains are present. They can end up with teeny hairline fractures that will haunt them later in life.

[swellmomma]

I had severe growing pains as a child in my shins and thighs. My son gets them in his shins too, he is only 10 so we have a whole lotta growing to go. I remember how much the pain was at night, enough to be up all night crying in pain.

 

Another possiblilty is not growing pains at all. I have bad ankle and knee pain enough to make walking difficult especially first thing in the am. It is due to plantar fasciitis (sp?) which is flatting of the arches. If I have not worn shoes all the day before or if I wear the wrong ones it is made worse. So I wear shoes, typically sandals with arch support from the minute I wake up until I go to bed and they sit by my bed. It is the only way to combat the pain.

 

If at all concerned a trip to the dr can confirm or deny growing pains or plantar fasciitis

[PameliaSue]

My 8yo has them in his knees and can hardly walk sometimes. He'll hobble around for a day or 2 or even 3 and then he's back at it.

[genie]

I had them often as a kid. The magic remedy for me was Ace bandages wrapped around the area.

[Alenee]

Yep! My dd does and I can vividly remember having them myself. I am 5'11" and I grew about 4-5" in one summer. It was a painfulllllllll summer!:glare:

[melopher]

My knees hurt for a couple of years when I was really growing, so I can sympathize as well.

[Amy in NY]

My oldest grew about 6" over one summer...

 

Oh. my. I did not know this was possible.

 

I can only imagine your grocery bill...and all of the new clothes you had to buy.

[KatieJ]

Yes, 2 of my children had them a lot.

My DD had them when she was younger. She would wake up crying at night and I would sit by her and sing and massage her legs until she could fall back asleep. I don't recall if I ever gave her Tylenol. She was in dance back then and I think there were days that aggrivated it.

My oldest son grew many many inches one winter. He ended up with horrible stretch marks across his lower back. He was never one to complain much, just like his Dad who vividly remembers having growing pains when he was a kid.

[Maria from IN]

In my sixth grade year, I grew six inches. If I remember correctly, the doctor said that my bones were growing so quickly that the ligaments and muscles had trouble keeping up. I tore the ligaments in my left knee 3 times that year.

 

:001_smile:

[NevadaRabbit]

My ds, age 14, has been experiencing pains in his knees. He has trouble running, bending, etc. from the aches. He is tall and has grown over 4" in the last year. Has anyone else's dc had this type of pain?

 

It is likely Osgood-Schlatter's disease. Very common in adolescents after a growth spurt. A visit to a physical therapist would help you both to learn ways to relieve the pain and minimize potential knee damage until his muscles/ligaments/tendons catch up to those fast-growing bones!

[Cheryl in NM]

By brother had horrible growing pains when he was growing up. He would frequently wake up screaming from the pain. My mother used a cream from Shaklee with mint in it. I recently found out Mary Kay has a minted cream. Traumeel should work also. I'd avoid daily use of pain relievers as they just clog up your liver.

[saved1112]

It is likely Osgood-Schlatter's disease. Very common in adolescents after a growth spurt. A visit to a physical therapist would help you both to learn ways to relieve the pain and minimize potential knee damage until his muscles/ligaments/tendons catch up to those fast-growing bones!

 

 

Yep.. I remember the end my 6th grade year I began to have problems with my knees, the dr said I had Osgood-Schlatter's... I was excused from PE until my senior year in high school. Oddly my knees will occasionally give me problems, especially my right one when I do certain exercises or activities. Dr now says my knee cap is a little high and rubs wrong, so if I strenthen the muscle in between/near there it should help move/keep the knee cap down where it should be. I didn't take Ibuprofen, etc as when I was younger I had Reye's Syndrome (it is not only limited to children and aspirin alone). Very occasionally I would take Tylonol, but the removal of PE helped quite a bit. I did walk and swim, so I wasn't completely inactive.

[Diane G.]

My son is 11 and he has had pain in his legs, hips, back and arms. His doctor said he is fine that it is just "growing pains." He uses it a lot to try to get out of doing chores though, and I, of course, don't know if he is really sore at the time or not! LOL!

 

Diane

[NevadaRabbit]

I'd avoid daily use of pain relievers as they just clog up your liver.

 

Cheryl, I mean no offense, but I respectfully ask that you avoid generalizations such as this. Overuse of any medication leads to problems, but appropriate use of OTC pain relievers is generally considered safe. Over-the-counter NSAIDs (aspirin, ibuprofen and the like) are much more effective when they are used regularly (every 4-6 hours as labeled) rather than in a hit-or-miss manner. Tylenol, which is not in the NSAID category, can be used as needed for pain. In a condition such as the one being discussed, if it is what I suspect, an anti-inflammatory would be extremely helpful, and would be best utilized daily, if the young man's doctor so advises.

 

We all have our own limits on what we would let our children ingest, of course. But in my 9 years of practice as an orthopedic physical therapist, I never had a single patient go into liver failure as a result of their pain meds. And most of them were on stuff a lot more hard-core than Advil! :001_smile:

[Kris]

My ds, age 14, has been experiencing pains in his knees. He has trouble running, bending, etc. from the aches. He is tall and has grown over 4" in the last year. Has anyone else's dc had this type of pain?

 

Absolutely. As a matter of fact, when my son's knees start bothering him, he let's me know and we put him up against the "measuring wall." We always find that he's had a growth spurt -- sometimes as much as two inches in just a month! He is 6'6" as of the last time we measured him.

 

When this happens, his knees "go out" on him. I don't "do" doctors, but it was serious enough that I did have him looked at. The doctor said he was growing so fast, his knees weren't keeping up. Once the growth spurt is over, things are fine again.

 

I do buy supplements for him and sometimes he takes them and sometimes he doesn't. His Taekwondo instructor has knee problems, too, and recommended them.

[Scuff]

DS is 7 and gets pain in his legs when he grows. He has his own rice bag and if that won't do it I give him tylenol. When I was growing I had pain in my feet. Even went to the Dr for it, but she said it was just growing pains.

[ereks mom]

Osgood-Schlatter's Disease, sometimes called Osgood-Schlatter's Syndrome since it is not really a disease. It sounds scary, but really isn't!

 

I got this from a website you might want to see:

 

"Good news: Osgood-Schlatter disease (OSD) is far less frightful than its name. Though it's one of the most common causes of knee pain in adolescents, it's really not a disease, but an overuse injury. OSD can be quite painful — but usually resolves itself within 12 to 24 months."

 

When he was about 12 years old, ER grew REALLY fast, and complained of pain near the knees. We visited the pediatrician, who did x-rays and told us about OSD. He said that the bones, muscles, and tendons grow at different rates, and the pain is caused when the tendons grow slower and are stretched as the bone or muscle grows. ER had to limit activity (at the time he was doing a lot of gymnastics & bike riding) when he experienced pain, and when the pain subsided, he could continue. Within a year or so, the pain was gone.