Growing Pains

[napbonerpart]

I have been diagnosed with growing pains in my legs and back. What is it? Can you help me out as to what I need to do to fix it? Will I be able to play cricket again this season? Do you know of any high profile athletes that have made a comeback from growing pains? Thanks

[injuryupdate]

Growing pains isn't really a medical diagnosis - most of the time it is used to describe growth plate cartilage overload. However most of these conditions completely recover in adult life.

If you have low back problems from bowling in cricket, I hope you doctor has made sure you don't have a stress fracture.

[Nicholas]

Hi there,
My 5-year old daughter gets growing pains frequently. I think she might give physio a try. Do you think she should.

[soffijosheph]

Yes I think she have to because with that you can know what is the problem and he can solve it.

[ryanbroad82]

As injuryupdate said "growing pains" is not a diagnosis, what most people refer to as growing pains is pain at the back of the heel where the achilles tendon attaches to the calcaneum, also referred to as Sever's Disease, or pain at the front of the knee where the patella tendon attaches to the tibia, also referred to as Osgood-Schlatter's Disease. Either way don't get worried about the name, they are not diseases, what they are, are a traction apophysitis, which is inflammation of the bones growth plate due to a tendon continually pulling on it and it will go away with no long term effects once you stop growing and the growth plate fuses.

In the meantime there is no "fix" it is really a case of management. You can safely do what ever your pain levels allow, when it gets painful ice and rest then go again. There are normally no long term effects and as I said it will go away when you do stop growing.

As for back pain "growing pains" is not an acceptable diagnosis at all, I would suspect there would be something else going on and you should probably get another opinion from someone who is not going to dismiss it as "growing pain" and while your at probably just confirm the diagnosis for the other areas that have been labelled as growing pains.