Does anyone have experience with Severs Disease?

[Drama Llama]

The name sounds so horrible, but it's just an inflammation of the growth plate in the heel, pretty common in kids who are having growth spurts and play jumping/running/high impact sport.  

I am trying to figure out what this looks like over time. How did you treat it?  How much time off their sports did your kid need?

 

[AmandaVT]

One of the gymnasts I used to coach had it - she used a heel cup when she practiced, but the pediatrician told her that she could continue with normal activities (in her case, it meant practicing 15+ hrs a week) and just take breaks if it hurt too much. I don't remember it lasting too terribly long. 

[Carrie12345]

My oldest was out for most of his baseball season, but at 100% within months. There were crutches, then a shoe insert, and stretches he was supposed to do.   
(This was well over a decade ago, so it’s hard to remember exact details.)

[Harriet Vane]

I had this when I was in high school. My coach made me a simple shoe insert--he cut out a hole in a thick pad to protect the protruding bump. It worked great. I kept playing basketball and doing all the things. Eventually the bump went away.

[The Governess]

My dd is a dancer - she had this for a 3-6 month period. Here is what helped:

1) she wore shoes with heel cups in them all the time - no going barefoot. in ballet class she wore those circular makeup sponges under her heels inside her ballet slippers.

2) I gave her a calf massage every night while she was experiencing pain - as well as around her achilles (avoiding the tendon itself). Her calves were really tight, which was pulling on her Achilles, which was irritating the growth plates.

Being consistent with this allowed her to keep dancing. 

[Brittany1116]

My older one had it from about 9-10.5. My younger seems to be complaining about it now at age 8. Gymnastics, basketball, and soccer are the top 3 culprits. We were told most kids do fine with a combination of rest (for us, this was less running/jumping outside of games until season ended), elevation, ice, and Ibuprofen. Stretching before activity and rolling a tennis ball under the foot several times a week decreased complaints. We also found KT taping the heel seemed to help. 

[Brittany1116]

On a related note, 8yo decided to ditch soccer this season because his "feet already hurt from jumping on the trampoline" and if they were going to hurt, he preferred it be from that than soccer. 😮😆

[Ali in OR]

My dd had this when she was in 7th or 8th grade. She was starting her big growth spurt--it wasn't obvious to us yet that that was what was going on--and she was doing both cross country running and club soccer. I took her to a sports medicine doctor when I noticed it was affecting her gait and he diagnosed it. She had PT for a few months. She wore heel cups in her soccer shoes for a couple of years (soccer shoes are not designed for heel support!) and she learned that she needed a certain amount of drop in her running shoes which she still looks for today ~10 years later.