Growing pains aren’t just painful and frustrating for children, they can also see them miss out on their favourite sports and activities with their friends. Our podiatrists treat growing pains by getting down to the root cause of why they occur to stop the painful and uncomfortable symptoms. We help kids get kids back to doing the things they love as quickly as possible.

Growing pains affect children between the ages of 3 and 12 years, often (but not always) during a growth spurt. There’s a common misconception that growing pains are one of those expected problems that kids must go through and put up with, like losing their baby teeth. The truth is that when it comes to musculoskeletal pain, there is always a cause, and when we identify the cause, knowing which steps to take to help resolve the problem is often straightforward.

What Are Growing Pains?

To understand what growing pains are, it’s important to understand how our bones grow. Before our bones mature, they contain specific cartilaginous areas called ‘growth plates’, which our body uses as a construction site to add new bone cells and grow our bones. Being a work in progress, these growth plates aren’t as strong as the rest of the bone, making them more vulnerable when tension is applied to the bone.

While our bones grow, our muscles do too, lengthening and strengthening, and going through periods of tightness as they lengthen and keep up with the body’s growth. As muscles attach to the bones, they pull and place tension on the bone when kids are moving and active – and it’s the growth plates that become irritated and painful as a result. This is how growing pains start, and continue until the tension on the bone from growing muscles and tendons is reduced and normalised.

Signs Your Child Is Experiencing Growing Pains

If your child is experiencing growing pains, they may:

  • Report pain during or after sports that settles with rest
  • Find that bending and moving their feet and legs a certain way can exacerbate or settle symptoms
  • Awaken during the night in pain
  • Limp after sports
  • Experience throbbing, redness or swelling at the affected growth plate

Call us today

(09) 212 9612

www.mypodiatrist.co.nz