My 3 Year Old Is Limping

My only suggestion would be to watch out for fever as you are doing. My son had similar but more severe symptoms than what you described along with a fever. We landed in the hospital. He had to have 2 surgeries to clear a mysterious and nasty infection. Good luck. I hope for your daughter's sake it is merely a sprain or something of that sort. Best wishes for swift recovery.

You should be calling your pediatrician and running it by them it could be just growing pains or it could be something more serious or it could be absolutely nothing at all.

I don't mean to scare you, but GET HER to the DOCTOR!!!!! It could be nothing, but it could be something as serious as bone cancer. Thats how a lot of it is first noticed. Hopefully it turns out to be nothing, but don't take their brushing it off. Push for an MRI if you feel it's necessary. Good Luck!!

Have you called your doctor? She probably should go.

My daughter had similar symptoms, with a slight limp, at age 4. I did not see any swelling but Dr said later that there was some minor swelling in her knee. My daugters symptoms got steadily worse though and after several days, she was unable to bear any weight on one leg. We spent 5 hours in the ER on Christmas Eve morning and it turned out to be Lyme Disease. Was treated and she is now great with no after affects.

I would advise you to take her to the doctor and get an xray of her knee - if she is limping then something is wrong.

I would definitely take her to the doctor and get an x-ray and/or blood test (CBC) just to make sure everything is ok, which hopefully it is!

I do think I would be concerned enough about this limping to take the child to doctor.
There are many reasons a child can start limping like that.
She may have twisted her knee...the causes are myriad so it is useless for any of us to "guess" at the why.
There are many serious reasons for a child to start limping and these MUST be explored before the situation worsens.
Rules we followed are this...if there is NO obvious cause ( bruise, fall, twist) and this issue can deteriorate, is not normal, than take the child to the doctor.
A word of caution...this is one of those things a harried doctor is regrettably inclined to "brush off".
One brush off is one too many and certainly more than enough if it reccurs.
So, if you take her to doctor, he brushes off, she limps again, your cue to become very persistent and insist he find the cause. Which could be harmless and pass quickly.
Do keep a diary of incidence. Date that she limped, how long she limped, if she complained of pain, how bad and where. If swelling developes or fever.
This will help the doctor immensely in determining cause.
Please do not brush this off. It is easy to do so with a family of four , I know, but I strongly recommend you follow through here.
Best wishes and God bless
Grandmother Lowell

I agree with your first responder, Rachel. When I first read your post, I only thought of growing pains.

I am not from around here, though, and Lyme Disease is apparently much more prevalent here than other parts of the country, so if you are concerned about that, please do follow up on it.

Good luck with her!

I would call her doctor and get her checked for lyme disease....there isn't always a rash with the first stage (so it can go undetected) and the second stage effects joints - occurs months after the first stage. Usually it presents as joint pain that can't be explained by any truama. My limited expirience is that the child refused to bear weight at all, so maybe it is nothing, but certainly worth a call and asking about it.

Take her to a doctor to get it checked out.

A couple of years ago my son had the same thing. I forget the name of it, but it was a virus that settles in the joints. My son could barely put any weight on his leg because his knee was hurting so badly. The doc knew what it was, but did take an x-ray just in case. You should call the pedi, but if I had to guess, that's probably what it is. Good luck!

I agree, have your child tested for Lyme disease. Do you know of any tic bites as of late? If you catch it, it is treatable with antibiotics.

Another thing you may want to rule out is JRA (Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis). I don't want to alarm you, so please take this suggestion with a grain of salt. My daughter has JRA, and some mornings she is stiff but as the morning progresses, she gets better. There are a slew of other symptoms too (fevers, advanced bone growth, sleep issues) but I have heard of folks passing off joint pain to 'growing pains'. I'm sure this is not the case with your daughter, but most people have never even heard of JRA (our family included, weren't we surprised with her diagnosis a few years ago). There is not a test for JRA out there but rather a number of tests to rule out everything else. My daughter was three yrs. old when she was diagnosed. Wish someone had told me of the possibility and I promise you that is why I'm telling you about it. I am certainly not insinuating your daughter has JRA or trying to worry you further, just putting it out there.

Would like to hear how things turn out with your daughter. Good Luck!

I would call the ped right away. When this happened to our now 6 year old he started out limping (he was 4 ) then it got so bad we ended up in the emergency rm. They did tons of tests and it turns out he had Lyme Disease. He had NO other spmptoms None!. I would get this checked out right away for your piece of mind.

I agree with the responders who say have her tested for Lyme Disease. My 10 year old had similar symptoms and was tested for Lyme and Rheumatoid Arthritis. He ended up having the Lyme Disease and we treated him with antibiotics and with homeopathics for Lyme. The symptoms haven't returned, thank goodness. If that is what she ends up being diagnosed with do some research on the best way to handle it. We chose to use both medicines so that the spirochetes were treated and his whole body was treated.

Good luck.