Any Other Kiddos with Growing Pains?

is the limping any better? If its better maybe he had a really bad cramp and its still sore. I remember getting those leg cramps and ive felt the after affects for an extra day, but it should be a little better. He could have pulled something. Id do ib profin for any swelling of the muscles. a nice bath and have him rest it for a little bit. Feel under the knee as there are some lypmh nodes there. If you dont feel anything I wouldn't freak.

Poor thing. I had them TERRIBLE when I was a little girl. I would get them in my legs. I remember very distinctly getting xrays and bloodwork at 5, 6 really young (my dad is a physician and even he was stumped). Stretching is really important. Hydration too. But time is all that will make it go away completely. Tylenol/advil helps.

My older daughter grew in a pattern that I really didn't notice her sudden growth. My little one will grow nearly overnight. One day we will look at her and ask her if she grew again because she will suddenly be taller.

I imagine a sudden growth spurt hurts. Does your body really grow all at once? Does every bone, muscle, tendon, and flesh know it is time to grow or do the tendons and muscles have some stretching and growing to do in order to catch up with the bones? I don't know, but my daughter will complain of a low back pain and leg pain from time to time. She pretty much has a quarterly growth spurt of about 5/8 inch.

The bones grow faster than the muscles and tendons and that is what hurts. My daughters both had problems with this in their shins and their feet. In the feet it was called Sever's disease but it really is just one grows faster than the other so the muscles and tendons are stretched which hurts. Ibuprofen, ice or heat (whatever feels best) and in our case a note from the doctor to avoid gym class activities on their feet.

My kids had growing pains for years, and usually at bed time -- I give them tylenol and it goes away. I think every kid is different.

I vote growing pains.

My son and all his friends (girls and boys) all went through that at that same exact age. They all woke up in the middle of the night or in the morning, screaming and crying and holding their legs cuz it hurt so bad. I want to say it only lasted a day or two, but no longer than a week. However for my son, it happen at least once a month for a about a year. All of us moms attributed it to growing pains.

We just gave our kids tylenol if it was really bad and kept them from jumping around hard too much, even on the trampoline, and esp right before bed. My son too, has a very high tolerance for pain, so it was kind of scary to hear him scream and cry.

Growing pains are usually a sign of a vitamin or mineral deficiency and can go away with proper supplements.

When my son gets growing pains I immediately give him some trace mineral drops in his water and a vitamin from New Chapter called Bone Strength (which uses plant-sourced whole-food calcium, which will direct the calcium to the bones, not the arteries, it also has Vitamin D3, K1, K2, Magnesium, Silica, Strontium and Vandium (all good bone building blocks). My son's pains will usually go away over night.

This is what I found online for anyone wanting to know more about how bones are laid down. Here's a bone 101: http://www.engin.umich.edu/class/bme456/bonestructure/bon...

"Bone is made of a criss cross collagen matrix. To ''grow'' good bones vitamin C is necessary to make collagen. But to make collagen, you have to have a good food source of gelatin. The collagen forms bonds with calcium. In order to have good calcium bonds, Vitamin K is necessary to pull in the calcium and help bond it to the collagen If children won't eat fresh greens, or other vitamin K foods, then that causes problems pulling the calcium in. If there isn't enough magnesium, then the calcium won't be stable in the bones, and lack of magnesium is usually linked with cramp. Vitamin D, boron and silica are important for structural strength... a lot goes into laying down strong bones, which are also flexible.

With children there is a huge increase in bone growth going on. They need a really good mineral rich, natural diet to help that. The old idea of cod liver oil, and blackstrap molasses was not as stupid as it sounded.

If you google foods looking for the main bone minerals, you should be able to find good selections. If you see that they are primarily foods he doesn't like, then you might have an idea what the problems stems from. If they are foods he does like, then increase them across as broad a range as possible, and hopefully it will work out.

But not much will work out if he's not getting enough vitamin C, because without that, the collagen matrix will be vastly decreased, therefore so will his calcium bonding, and the bones won't form properly. If it gets really bad and really chronic, and an X-ray is taken, you can see ''Harris lines'' on certain bones, which are sort of like ''tide marks'' marking the places where there wasn't enough vitamin C.

Usually, it rights itself if there is a good enough diet. But if there is not, and say, he fractures a bone and on the X-ray they see Harris lines, then they will tell you (if they actually understand what they are seeing, and that is a moot point) that you need to attend to her diet. Most doctors though, don't know the nutritional pathways to strong bones, so they aren't likely to suggest much beyond vitamin C, if that, let alone discuss the whole of it. Anyway, that's only a brief overview. ~more minerals for all!"

At 4, 6 and 8 yrs old, our son had HORRIBLE growing pains!
Each of those years he shot up 4 inches in height.
I had a heck of a time keeping him in clothes and shoes those years - no matter how over sized I bought for him, he'd out grow them within a few months.
He'd wake up crying in the night they hurt him so bad but the pains could come anytime of the day or night.
He got pains in his long bones areas - shins, thighs, upper and lower arms (one area at a time - never all at once).
We tried heating pad, icing it, warm bath, Tylenol, Aspercream, massage, eating calcium and potassium rich foods.
He always chewed a multivitamin everyday, so a vitamin deficiency had nothing to do with it (the Dr said the same thing).
Sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn't.
He never stayed home sick with it, he'd go to school and do his best in gym and on the playground (but some classmates would be having the same problems - the other kids who were getting tall quickly).
It will pass eventually.
Start measuring him now!
He'll be taller by Christmas!

My daughter (now 6 yrs old) gets these in her legs and feet. Enough to make her cry, like it really hurts. :-( I massage the area, and it usually goes away in a few minutes. Once it was lasting longer -- and the middle of the night -- so I gave her Advil and that seemed to help.

But it's never lasted that long, or caused a limp that lasted.

Both my grandsons have them. Very common and very painful. You can give them children's Motrin or Tylenol. Sometimes they last a week. They wake up crying in the night and its worse at night. My oldest grandson is 8 and they started when he was about 4. the youngest had his first episode last week at age 2 1/2. He is going to be tall, so guess thats why his started sooner. Seems like they occur bout every 6 months or so. Good luck and yes, it is very normal. It occurs much more often in boys too. Rarely in girls.

huh. I had growing pains and so does my oldest but never for this long. My daughter gets them mainly at night and I remember that's when I did too. In the morning they are gone. I notice she gets them mostly when she's tired. Are the pains at least getting better? I massage my daughter's legs... Seems to help some. And a hot bath. I'd take him into the doctor if they're not gone soon though. They may come back but I've never seen them go on without interuption for so long.

I am 71 now, but I had growing pains as a child, and I still remember the pain. Heat helps. My mother used to wrap a hot towel around the pain. Poor little guy. No fun. My children nor my grandchildren have had this. I am so sorry you son does.

My daughter has been having pain in her feet for 3 months now. I finally took her to the podiatrist today. He xrayed them and felt where they hurt. He told me that on the xrays her growth plates are still open (meaning that she has a lot more growing to do) and that every where he felt that hurt was where a growth plate was, hence growing pains. She has grown a lot in the past year, so it doesn't surprise me. He gave me stretching exercises, told her to ice it when not in use and to take Ibuprofen three times a day.

Is he double jointed? My daughter had similar symptoms from over extending her joints.

Growing pains don't usually last that long. I would take him to the urgent care clinic. If you don't get any help there, go to your nearest Children's Hospital. This is NOT normal!

Probably not this, but I'll mention it because it seems to be more common than it was even a few years ago and seems to be one of the last things people think of testing for... if the pain is in his joints (knee, ankle), it might be juvenile arthritis.

My daughter was diagnosed with it at age 2 and she can limp and complain of pain while not having visible inflammation and she does not have a fever (she can also have a flare that starts with a fever and there is visible swelling). If it continues and you can't find a cause, ask the doctor to check for juvenile arthritis. Most doctors will test for everything else before looking at the possibility of juvenile arthritis. Meanwhile the child feels more and more miserable and damage is taking a toll on the joint(s). I hope it is not that for your son, but I wanted to mention it as a possibility.

I hope you get an answer very soon.