Growth Pains - What Is It All About?

Many times children complain of pain in their legs, especially after routine age-appropriate activities. Growth pains among children occur often and it is important to gain an insight into it while also dispelling the varied notions that parents usually have.
Firstly, it is important to know what growth pain is. Growth pains are the pains experienced by children of growing age, generally between 3 to 10 years. However, it is a treatable condition.
Furthermore, growth pain is a diagnosis of exclusion, which means, only when all the common pathologies that could happen to the child as per his/her age have been excluded can he/she be diagnosed to be suffering from growth pains.
 
As with all other medical conditions, it is very important to note down the history. The parents usually come into the clinic or hospital with complaints that their child feels pain in the legs as the day ends. However, these kids start their day normally, without any pain. They are usually able to perform various physical activities as per their age. Even their physical examinations are almost always normal and so are their hematological parameters. There are various conditions specific to the growing age like bone infections, nutritional deficiencies and some benign lesions of long bones, which present with similar symptoms as growth pains. Hence, there is a need for a thorough clinical examination.
 
Though the etiology of growth pains is not clear, it is known that when children grow there is a differential growth rate in the muscles and bones, which means that the bones grow at a higher rate than muscles. This causes muscular shortening leading to stretching of muscles, which in turn becomes painful. Thus, physiotherapy plays a very important role in alleviating the symptoms of growth pains.
But, as we know, not all the children suffer from growth pains implying there are some other causative factors which are poorly understood. There is a muscular fatigue theory which says that muscle fatigue happens due to physical activities in children which also explains growth pains to some extent.

The red flag signs that should ring a bell and demand further investigations are:

1 if your child wakes up in the middle of the night and/or is unable to sleep properly due to pain.
2 if the pain is constantly present throughout the day and the child is unable to perform physical activities as per his/her age which he/she was doing before.
3 if there is a decrease of more than 10% of weight in the last 3 months.
These above findings warrant an immediate visit to a pediatric orthopedic as early as possible.

As far as treatment is concerned, if everything else is ruled out and the child has been labeled as having growth pains, be rest assured that the child will grow out of it after some time. The importance of physiotherapy, which includes both muscle stretching and strengthening, in these situations simply cannot be overstated. Meanwhile, giving anti-inflammatory medicines, hot fomentations and massage to the sore muscles during the period of pain always.