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Growing Pains
Those Annoying Little Aches By C.J. Johnson
Parents of school-aged children are often summoned to a child's room at night by their cries of pain. The parents rush into the room, flip on the lights and find their child rubbing his legs in discomfort. After massaging his legs and giving him a hug for reassurance, the ache subsides. The child returns to sleep and feels fine in the morning. This phenomenon is known as "growing pains" and occurs in 4 to 15 percent of school-aged children.
- The pains wake the child from sleep.
- The pains occur at the end of the day.
- The pains are deep and achy.
- The pain resembles a restless feeling in the legs.
- The pains are often in the front of the thighs or the back of the calf.
- The pain occurs in both legs, not just one.
- The pain lasts one to 15 minutes.
Although the child may experience the pains for two or more years, the pains are intermittent and do not generally occur every night for that entire time period.
Dr. Shaner often hears from parents: "Doctor, I had pains like this when I was a child and they went away. Could this be growing pains?" When a child experiences growing pains, usually one or both of the parents experienced them as children. "Few of my patients were surprised by a diagnosis of growing pains, because one or both parents had experienced the same in childhood," Dr. Shaner says. "Pain syndromes in general tend to be familial. For example, families with growing pains may also have members with chronic headaches, recurrent abdominal pains, fibromyalgia and the like."
Typically growing pains occur at night while a child is off his feet and lying in bed. Strenuous activities throughout the day often contribute to these painful leg cramps at night. Even though there are countless children who suffer from leg pains, many physicians believe there's little connection between these pains and growth spurts except that they usually occur during a period of rapid growth.