What causes knee pain in children?

The knee joint, which is composed of bones such as the medial condyle of the femur and the medial and lateral condyles of the tibia, is the largest and most complex joint in the human body, and it is also the most prone to injury. Major diseases of the knee joint generally occur in people who do heavy physical work and violent jumping. Ordinary people may occasionally feel pain in the knee joint. Today's content is about knee pain in children. Let's take a look.

Growing pains refer to pain around the knee joint or the front of the calf in children between the ages of 3 and 12 or 13 without any history of trauma. There is no redness, swelling or tenderness in the local tissues, and the movement is normal. The pain usually occurs around dusk. Excessive exercise and fatigue can aggravate the symptoms. The pain will relieve on its own after rest and disappear in the next morning.

The reason for growing pains is that children grow very fast in height during this period, and can grow 7-8 cm each year. Because bones grow rapidly, while the surrounding nerves, tendons, and muscles grow relatively slowly, pulling pain will occur. Second, when young children begin to learn to walk, the tibia of their lower legs is more bent. In order to offset the misalignment of the lower support force line caused by the inward curvature of the tibia, the human body will compensate by developing a certain degree of knee valgus. As children grow up, most of them will gradually correct these two temporary deformities, tibial inward curvature and knee valgus, by relying on the strength of their leg muscles without causing any pain.

However, in a small number of children, tibial inward curvature and knee valgus are not corrected in time. In order to maintain the stability of the joints, the leg muscles must always be kept tense, resulting in pain. Third, children are very active during the day, and their muscles are prone to fatigue and pain over time. School-age children are innocent and tireless, and a lot of activity will inevitably lead to the accumulation of acidic metabolic products such as lactic acid, which will also cause muscle soreness.

It is undeniable that some children will suffer from calcium deficiency during this period, but calcium supplementation is not very helpful in relieving growing pains.

Through today's content, we learned that children's knee pain is what we usually call growing pains, but first we must rule out the possibility that it is not trauma. Growing pains are not a big problem. It is just the discomfort caused by rapid bone growth. Parents don’t have to worry too much, but they should also pay attention to their children’s attention and exercise, and try to drink less carbonated drinks to avoid calcium loss.