3 year old limping

[Tunnocks34]

On Saturday morning my mum commented that my son was limping. I hadn’t noticed it myself but agreed when it was pointed out to me.

My son is saying his leg isn’t sore, he is able to move his hip, knee and foot fine, there are no tender spots. He can run fine, he is jumping, climbing, playing. He is showing no signs of distress. But he is still limping.

My husband took him to the walk in centre where the doctor felt it looked like it was a sore foot, and x rayed it. No fracture showed up so the doctor just diagnosed soft tissue damage to the foot and sent him home.

My issue is that his foot isn’t swollen, or bruised. He is saying it isn’t sore, and as far as I am aware there have been no bangs or falls.

He has had no illnesses or colds recently either.

Anyone with any experience of this? I’m worried it’s something more sinister!

I'd just give it a week or so and see whether it passes.

My DH had this as a child and was later diagnosed with ALL :/ if your DS has been checked over by a GP already then keep monitoring him and go back if you're still worried.

There are lots of causes of limp in children. The vast majority of limping kids don't have anything seriously wrong with them and get better within a few days. However, there are some important causes that need to be considered as well. Children are notoriously difficult to examine and it can be very difficult to isolate where along the limb the problem lies. Were you offered some kind of follow-up appointment to ensure that the limp has resolved?

If he isn't better in 48 hours of being seen (or is getting worse) then he should be assessed again. I personally would go to the nearest Emergency Department of a hospital that has paediatrics on-site. They will have a defined pathway for assessing and following up limping children.

DOI: A&E doctor.

My son had this a few weeks ago. He just woke up and was unable to put weight on one leg. We took him to a&e and they couldn’t find anything wrong, so they told us to give him calpol and to make a doctors appointment if it didn’t improve within 3 days. Thankfully it seemed to have sorted itself out by bedtime.

I would go to a&e. It could be osteomyelitis which needs treating fast.

Yes he has a follow up appointment on Friday morning.

The limp does appear to be worse when wearing shoes, when he is barefoot, sometimes it seems the limp is gone, but then other times it’s more noticeable.

Dr didn’t think it was an infection because he has no redness, no swelling etc, no temperature and doesn’t appear to be in pain.

It was children’s a&e we took him too, the a&e at our hospital is split into a walk in and an a&e, so it was a dr there - they didn’t seem overly concerned. They felt his thigh. Shin, hip, knee, assessed for weaknesses etc but just said he looks like he is trying to withhold pressure from his foot, and so it must be an issue with his foot.

The problem is. I don’t remember him hurting his leg or foot really. He dropped a toy dinosaur on his foot but cried for all of 30 seconds. He fell over Saturday morning but again barely cried.

I had OCD which doesn’t help - I’ve practically diagnosed him with an incurable brain cancer.

All of my 3 sons had irritable hip when they were a similar age. It's also called transient synovitis and can be caused by a virus. It causes a limp and is more common in boys. When ds1 and ds2 had it I think it started to get better after a week or so but ds3 wouldn't weight bear for a few weeks and it was another couple of weeks until he was walking normally again. It's good that he's being followed up but I think this is the most common cause of limping in young children so chances are he will be fine.

It is almost certainly going to end up being transient synovitis and to improve by itself. As long as you have follow-up then it sounds as if everything that should be happening is happening.

Weird as it sounds my son had something similar after a cough/feeling a bit unwell. Common in boys, had an X-ray etc. Follow up but some type of virus that comes out in hips 🤷‍♀️. Never heard of it, but sounds up thread that others have had it (though glad someone else had mentioned it as was thinking I’d merged and confused things in my mind)

Just an update:

Our son just stopped limping. No clue why he was in the first place really, but last few days he’s been walking completely normally 🤷🏻‍♀️ Kids eh!