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Could This Still Be A Growing Pain?
Colin Ifield
Have you an ache or pain that has been niggling at you for years and perhaps getting worse? Could this have started years ago when you were told it was just 'growing pains'? Very likely!
'Growing pains' or 'benign limb pain of childhood', develop because of rapid growth spurts where our skeletal growth is faster than our muscle growth, thereby causing excessive and/or uneven pressure on the limb and spinal joints. This condition mainly occurs at two critical times; firstly between the ages of three to six and again in our early teens. If left unchecked, as is often the case, the results can remain for many years and sometimes, develop into crippling pain in later life. The term 'growing pains' may be misleading, because the condition can exist in many people even though the obvious signs of pain; are not evident. Problems still develop but we may not be aware, at the time.
Many people who suffer problems in later life also remember having growing pains at school during sporting events. The doctors told their caring parents 'explain to the child that this is not serious, it will help to decrease their anxiety and the problem will eventually disappear'. That's the cure?
As a child you may have been told 'just put up with it, it will go away' and, although it seemed to, the development of more serious problems have already begun. Scoliosis, is but one problem that can develop if these conditions have been ignored. Any camper knows that if you pull a guy rope too tight on one side of a tent it will not only lean to one side, but may sometime much later, even fall on you. Our muscles can have the same effect on our body structure.
I know of several cases where teenagers have had a complete turn around because of massage therapy and in one of these cases; the signs of severe scoliosis disappeared entirely. One child who will not suffer in later life is a four-year-old boy with leg pains that woke him during the night. His parents could see and feel the cramping in his calf muscles. They gave him the benefit of professional massage on several occasions and then, having been shown how, continued the treatment where necessary, themselves.
These, and many other cases, suggest that something can be done at the onset and in most cases it is never too late to correct the problems associated with 'growing pains'. What do you think?
This article is intended to be informative and interactive. Readers are invited to participate, by writing to us with their thoughts or comments and to request topics of interest, relating to health issues.
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