My 7 year old daughter has knee pain. In the last month she has had two x-rays on it and both were normal. She use to complain in the car because of the way her legs dangled hurt. I bought a special booster with a leg lift to hold her legs up. When it hurts she is in a lot of pain and can’t bear wait on it. The first time to the doctor he thought the knee cap looked a little displaced. We were told to do certain exercises. This time it looks like her bone is sticking out on the inner part. ER Doctor said, it looks displace a little but the x-ray looks ok. Thinking back she use to have joint pain in the elbows that woke her up at night. Lately she has had a lot of spine pain. Does this connect any dots to any one? Sure could use some advise on this one.
Thank you all for your help on this. The doctor ran some blood work and we are still waiting on the results. We started physical therapy along with Naproxen. We got the knee to go back in place with the exercises. Two weeks later had a hamstring pull. It turns out that cheerleading has been developing muscles that are pulling her bones because her connective tissues are weaker than most. Thank you all for all of your help.
Outside of growing pains - and yes, they are real - I'm thinking another opinion is in order. It's certainly possible to have arthritis. Follow your instincts. If you know something is wrong keep knocking on doors until you get a satisfying answer!
arthritis? Joint pain can also be caused by lyme if you have it in your area or have visited anywhere that it is common. My son had/has it and the pain in his shoulder was so great that he would wake crying and he is a child that is very tolerant of pain they now think he has chronic lyme because his legs are stiff and painful now that it has gotten cold. Also arthritis is a long term side effect of having lyme even when treated and caught early.
You need to find an orthopedic surgeon or another specialist. I know kids joints are funky rowing up but obviously your other doctors dont give a squat whats going on. get another opinion from someone who is well experienced in this area. Take her to her family doc or someone knew and get the ball rolling on her issues. She obviously is having a bad time with her kneee it shouldnt be shrugged off.
I saw this and I wanted to comment because some of these same issues happened to my oldest daughter around the same age. Various complaints of joint pain in the legs, wrists, and sometimes her back. At first, I would think they were growing pains and give her some Tylenol or Advil and although it did help, the pains would keep coming back. Finally, I told our pediatrician about this and she was concerned enough to run blood tests. She ran an ANA, Sed. Rate, and Rheumatoid Factor on my daughter at age 8. Lo and behold.....the ANA comes back positive and the Sed. Rate indicated slight inflammtion in the body. I also had to have her tested for other diseases such as MS, Muscular Dystrophy, and Lymes Disease. Thos came back negative...thank GOD. My daughter has a non-specific auto-immune disease of the connective tissue. It has symptoms that mimic both mild forms of Lupus and also rheumatoid arthritis...hence the muscle and joint pain randomly cropping up and the chronic headaches too. She sees a Pediatric Rheumatologist and it was determined that she inhertited this from my husband, who after testing, found out that he has the same thing. My younger daughter and myself tested negative for the disease and are not genetic carriers, either. The good news is that my daughter is mostly in remission with the occassional mild flare up if she gets overly stressed or pushed to the limit. She is 16 now and plays Varsity sports, is a straight-A student, and is also drop-dead gorgeous and healthy. She does everything that anyone else her age would do but just has to be careful of her stress levels, getting enough rest at night, and seeing the doctor regularly to monitor the disease. No medication is needed unless a flare occurs and we treat that with prescription N-SAIDS, Glucosamine/Chondroitin MMS, heat therapy, rest, and sometimes massage. It works for now. My husband also see a Rheumatologist and his disorder is more active because he's 42 now and he has some chronic joint pain and skin involvement...more like Lupus. He is treated with a drug called Plaquenil and also an OTC med called Zyrtec. The combo works well and recently he came off the Plaquenil and the Zyrtec, for whatever reason, is holding the disease at bay and no one can explain why.....this is NOT typical and a medical mystery but we take it. I'm not meaning to scare you at all but your daughter complains about stuff that mine used to and I know how you feel. Get some bloodwork done and see if you can get answers from that. It can't hurt and it will rule out things that need to be treated if she indeed has something that is causing this pain. Better to be safe than sorry when it comes to our kids and mysterious pain. Good luck and if you need to talk to me....feel free to message me!
I agree with the possibility of arthritis. My brother has had it since we were little and sometimes it got so bad he had to have crutches so as to put as little pressure on his knees as possible.
I'm a pediatric physical therapist and it doesn't sound like growing pains to me. I would recommend trying to get her referred to a pediatric rheumatologist or possibly pediatric orthopedic surgeon if no rheumatologist is availble where you are. They should really run some bloodwork on her to test for rheumatoid arthritis. Make sure to mention about the elbows and spine as well as that will likely change the way they approach testing her. Lyme disease can also cause strange symptoms, but not usually abnormal x-rays. They may want to test for that too. She needs someone other than the ER testing her, because their job is really just to stop the pain until her regular Dr. can find out what's wrong. Good luck and I hope they can figure out what's wrong quickly.
I am a certified Posture Alignment and Pain Management Specialist who deals w/ poor alignment causing pain and/or (or both) dysfunction. Don't know where you live, but you should google EGOSCUE. This is a COMMON SENSE, helping the body heal itself method.
First and foremost, you have to deal w/ the muscular imbalances causing the problems. MRI's and x-rays won't show muscular imbalances. They WILL show issues w/ the skeletal structure, but bones go where muscles tell them to. You just have to re-educate muscles to do their job. This is what I do.
This WAY more than connects the dots. Has she been checked for scoliosis? When one part of the body is out of alignement, other parts follow. You can't change the position/height/rotation of a hip,shoulder or anything else without something else being effected.
Many times, the source of the pain is NOT the source of the problem. That's why you NEED to look into this. Let me know if I can be of further assistance. I've worked w/ chiropractors, knee and shoulder specialists, ortho docs, etc. and this method MAKES A DIFFERENCE.
You have NO idea how many people come to me that have "tried everything" but this is the only thing that works. It IS a process, but EVERYONE tells me they notice a difference the first time I work w/ them.
I've worked w/ kids w/ back pain as young as five and my oldest client - 94.
I didn't read all the responses but could it be growing pains? I remember having them when I was a kid because I grew so fast. It is funny I was one of the tallest kids in class up until about 6th grade and then everyone shot up past me!
If it isn't growing pains then it could be a form of arthritis. It is rare in children but it does happen. Maybe a joint supplement might work but I would check with the doctor first. Good luck! I hope it goes away.
Take her to a pediatric orthopedic surgeon.
Could she be allergic to something? I remember when we found out my son was allergic to 'cillins, his joint hurt to the point of not wanting to put weight on them. Just a thought. Good luck.
