Growing pains

[Cityzen74]

My DS (7) is waking up quite a lot in the night with what I assume are growing pains in his legs. They are so bad he is crying in pain. Of course I give him calpol which helps.

A couple of months ago I decided to start writing down when this happens just to see if I could see a pattern. In the last 6 weeks this has happened 3 times and I wondered if this was usual or whether I should be seeing a dr?

Has anyone else had experience of this and did anything (other than calpol) help?

Thanks so much

Mine don’t tend to wake with the pains (though do obviously struggle to go to sleep if they develop around bedtime) but I always find nurofen and a bath are magic. I put magnesium salts in and it seems to help x

Also came to say magnesium.

Epsom salt baths and/or a simple magnesium spray on bottoms of feet and on leg muscles. Warning it does tingle especially at first as your body builds its levels up but you get used to it.

Sweet Bee magnesium butter is a bit more gentle if the spray isn’t tolerated.

My DS has suffered for years when he has growth spurts. Turns out he is hypermobile and this can make things worse, his muscles need extra stretching (physio stretches) when he is growing quickly. The way we found this out was that he was walking on his toes and we were having that investigated…..may not be the case for your DS but I thought worth mentioning. We used calpol too and it generally worked.

Thank you so much @healthyteeth @ICSH1 and @Jokeymcjokeface . Really appreciate your replies.

I hadn’t realised that magnesium could help so I will definitely get some of that. I just feel awful for him when he wakes up in so much pain so hopefully this can help.

Oh yes magnesium is amazing! I have the BetterYou sensitive spray and both of mine cope with that well but it definitely does tingle!

Great - will look for that. Do you put it on them everyday or just when they have pains?

So it depends. For my eldest who isn’t particularly active, I tend to use magnesium only occasionally (after a football match or if he’s got discomfort) with my youngest who is in a football academy I use it most days to keep his muscles in good shape/ make him less prone to cramp and aches. He only very rarely has what I would recognise as growing pains so maybe it is a bit preventative?

Thanks - I think I might try it and see what happens. I haven't really noticed a pattern of it happening after a particularly busy day or anything but I will see if I can notice anything.