Growing pains are essentially harmless muscular pain in young children aged 3-5 and from 8-11 years of age. Some children continue to experience pain into their teenage years irrespective of how much exercise they do.
Pain is most often felt in both legs, particularly the calf muscles or behind, or in front of the thigh. Some children may report arm pain or even headaches.
Growing pain can comes and go. It often presents late in the afternoon or evening and can be strong enough to wake a child during the night.
There is no clear explanation of why it occurs, for this reason growing pains are diagnosed by excluding and ruling out other serious conditions.
As an Osteopath, it is important to check to ensure that the child’s joints are not affected, rule out infection, and assess to see if the complaint is just a simple issue regarding how the bones, joints and muscles are functioning.
Growing pains can be treated using a variety of techniques to ease pain along with educated advice, management and care.
Remember even though your child can be in a lot of pain, in most cases no damage is occurring and the pain can eased with simple treatments methods.