Growing pains at night - any suggestions?

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My two gorgeous nephews aged 6 are staying with us and suffer with horrid leg pains at night which their mum says they do from time to time, but it is always bad. It reduceS them to tears and one has even asked them to cut his legs off

They live in Tokyo at the mo and the docs have dismissed it rather. Also you cannot buy painkillers for children in japan as they are banned. so no calpol etc to be had.

Does anyone have ideas of what can help them? They are going to buy Calpol to take back. Do hot water bottles help?

Any ideas cos it makes them so miserable.
Thank you!

My DD gets this and I use one of those wheat pillows that you heat up in the microwave.

It does seem to help her but if its in the middle of the night I do tend to rub her legs a bit and give her Calpol.

Ulysses - do you think it is growing pains?

so heat helps, I didn't know but I did think of wheat pllows.
Thank you.

Is it possible they have flat feet?

DS has, and used to have awful pain in his legs at night. He wears orthotic insoles now (from hospital) to support his feet - problem solved.

Majestic - did he have probs every night before you got it resolved? This seems to be intermittent. I will tell my SIL though cos it is something to chEck out. Thank you though.

Hot water bottle plus tubular bandages helps my DS, who sometimes has very bad leg pains at night.

No, Piste, not every night. Intermittent.

Thank you - flat feet is definitely something for them to check out.

She is also taking calpol back to japan and wheat 'hot water bottles'

It really can be horrid can't it? My two DC are 13&11 so older but they never suffered like this. DS still gets achy legs but not too bad.