3 Year Old Going Through Growing Pains???

80% of deer ticks in southern NH now have Lyme. It does NOT take a tick attached for 24 hrs for them to pass Lyme on to you - they can pass it on MUCH sooner. I would highly recommend getting her tested for Lyme, as knee pain is one of the most common symptoms. Only get the test done at IGeneX in CA -- that is considered the only reliable lab for Lyme testing -- some doctors will use other labs and they will commonly come back negative when in fact you do have Lyme. I hope this is not what she has, but I would not rule it out given where you live.

When my daughter was in her teens, she developed leg pain, mostly near her thigh. Her pediatrician had a hunch and referred her to an endocronologist for testing. Turned out she had Hashimoto's disease, which is a thyroid condition. Very easily treated with medication.

Hi L.,

I do not know what part of the knee you are referring to. It may be that her bones are growing faster than her muscles are lengthening. The muscles may be pulling at the growth plate of her tibia. That happened to me at an older age. My suggested solution: go see the pediatrican.

Good luck,
: ) Maureen

For whatever it's worth, our pediatrician has always said, "There's no such thing as growing pains. Growing shouldn't hurt". That said, the pain is likely caused by some other reason, and you should consider having your daughter checked by her pediatrician. Neither of my children experienced any "growing pains" and they're nearly 11 (twins). Some viruses can cause extreme leg muscle pain, which my daughters have experienced. Good luck.

My daughter will be 3 in April and she has the same complaints....I took her to her doctor and he seems to think it is growing pains. He told me that as long as nothing is red and swollen that is most likely the reason for her pain. She wasn't sick in any other way and didn't have a fever and was her usual self except for these complaints. I noticed that when she is having these pains that her appetite has also increased, and she sleeps longer so it does make sense. I also realized that when she says her knee hurts i ask her to point and she will point to her knee and say all the way down so she really is having pains below and above.

When my son was 3 he woke up in the middle of the night with terrible pains in his knees and calves. It got to the point that he couldn't walk on them anymore. I got really nervous and just took him to the ER. They determined, after blood work, x-ray & ultrasound, that it wasn't growing pains. It was an infection that had settled into his joints. He had had a pretty bad cold a few weeks prior and the doctors determined that it settled in his knee joints.
I too thought it was growing pains, but the doctors told me that growing pains usually don't start until puberty. I would call your doctor and see what they say.
Hope this helps!

My daughter who is seven has been having them, but my doctor told me it should not be in the joints but in the long bones of the legs, if it's concentrated in the knees you might want to get them CT's or checked to be sure there is not some problem, better safe than sorry.

If she is having trouble walking, I would talk to her doc about it. My boys have growing pains in the shins. If it is growing pains, potassium is good for them - bananas are what I keep around when they have these pains.

Interesting...my daughter (who just turned three) has been telling my that HER legs have been hurting in the past few weeks. It is sort of off and on...but I haven't been paying attention to which/both leg(s). I had horrible growing pains as a child, but of course, I was older when I remembered them.

I am pretty certain that she is going through a growth spurt right now...but I hadn't really considered growing pains. I'll be interested to see what you get back.

You don't say if she is a normal 3 year old in size.........I would have it checked out. Has she fallen? Is she clumsy? 3 year olds don't usually go through this. To be safe, get her checked out. If it's growing pains, that's great, if it's not, you need to find out sooner rather than later.
Good Luck.

Has she had a tick on her in the last 6 months? My son had horrible knee pain with swelling that periodically moved around to other joints. We had him tested and he ended up having Lyme disease. There was no bulls eye mark and he must have had the disease for a while to be at this stage. So you might want to tlk to her pediatrician about having her blood tested for Lyme.

We treated my son with both the antibiotic and with homeopathy for a couple of months and the symptoms have not returned. That was 2 years ago.

My son went through similar pains around the age 31/2 - 4 but it wasn't in the knee, it was around the shin. If it doesn't go away and she can't walk on the leg, it wouldn't hurt to go have it checked out, just in case. Better safe than sorry =)

is it all day long or only at night. I am very tall and was very tall at an early age. I used to have them beginning in the evening probaby around age 4-5 and they would hurt so bad. I can remember my parents rubbing my legs at night so i could go to sleep. It's very hard....hang in there. A warm bath always seemed to help some and then my parents had to resort to Ben Gay. That was a loonnnnnng time ago so I am sure they have something better now that doesnt smell so bad.

My son who will turn 3 in May just went through a growth spurt.
He was sleeping more, eating more and complaining that his knees hurt. In his case, it was growing pains (he grew a lot in a couple of weeks).
Try Tylenol to help her with the pain.

Good luck!