does this sound like anything to you? - complaints of DS's almost 3 & I have a vague feeling of worry

[hereidrawtheline]

DS who is 3 in August. He keeps complaining that his legs hurt, its been about 4 days of this now but off and on, but consistently. And also he has started saying he is really cold, especially in bed though when he has 4 blankets on him, one a weighted blanket for sensory problems, one knitted, two quilts. He is even calling out in the night "I'm cold" but he is still asleep. A couple of times he had kicked some blankets off but sometimes they were still on him.

So basically its nothing major but just enough and often enough to nag at me. Any thoughts? He has a near perfect vocabulary so I know he understands the words. What do you think?

Will watch with interest.

I have a DS who is nearly 5 and he complains every now and then about his legs hurting (not the cold part though). This week he has been up crying twice about leg ache.

The leg pains could be a growing spurt, ds1 gets this regularly and DH can remember his legs aching for years as a kid.

The cold thing, not sure. Do his hands and feet feel cold to you? Have you checked his temp, high temp can make you feel cold sometimes.

Legs is most likely growing pains dd1 has complained of these on and off since she was 3 (she'll be 5 in september) especially at night. In the end I took her to Drs who said nothing phsically wrong with her legs therefore he was 95% sure they were groeing pains (and normally we notice that her trousers are getting a bit short a while later!!) DH remembers suffering with groing pains and said it was agony, the Dr did give me a prescription for some gel to rub on (think it was ibruprofen or something but said only to use it when she was in alot of pain otherwise just gove her calpol and if needed a warm wheat bag on her legs

ooops awful typing there was trying to dress baby annabell for dd2 at the same time!

Has he got a temp?

My daughter often says her legs hurt. My son did too but I thought he was copying her. Both have had to see a physio so I would recommend you get him checked by a GP, not a HV.

BTW growing pains don't hurt.

he hasnt had a temp that I am aware of - I actually havent taken it I didnt think of it. But I am always touching him and with him and he hasnt seemed like he had a temp at all.

Yesterday we were playing football in the garden and he did go bright red and kept lying down on the grass so I made him come in for a rest - the leg/cold complaints started before this though I should add.

buy a thermometer and take his temp

I own a thermometer will take temp!

Ds complains of achey legs in the night too. He can be in a lot of pain. We rub the area firmly and if its really bad he has calpol.

We went to the doctors last week about it and she said that it's probably cramp. It sometimes happens on days when he's done a lot more activity than usual.
She said raising the foot of the bed can help and sometimes it can be made worse by a lack of potassium. ds doesn't eat bananas...

growing pains DO hurt! My husband got them as a teenager in his back, and my edlest son too. They are agony!

Do the pains come on at night or jusst before bedtime?
Both of mine suffer with growing pains (as did dh and i). It is absolute agony..i remember it very well. Does the pain dissapear with calpol?
Could be that?

My ds (4) gets this and I just assume it is growing pains. I certainly remembering having them as a child. No other symptoms though.

His temp is 36.5/97.7 so normal.

I know for a fact the last 2 days he has mentioned the pains during the day as well as when getting into bed. But also when sat on the floor playing a game or something. So it seems fairly random.

The cold thing is weird too I just wish I knew why he kept saying it - even to the point of saying it in his sleep & I would have thought if he was pretending it wouldnt carry on while he slept.

Thanks for reminding me to take his temp I really dont like our thermometer and want another one that I can use better & I seem to have a mental block about using it. I just dont trust it though I dont know why. I have heard and read so many bloomin variables like, what part of the body its taken from, add this, subtract that. I want an ear one.

You need to take his temp when he is shivery and cold really

Is his room cold?

yeah I know you are right I wish I hadnt forgotten that.

His room is normal - in fact its the other side of the wall to the boiler so we find in the winter his room gets way too hot unless we turn his radiator right down. We did turn the heat on last night for him even though the house & his room felt fine to us.

Could he be getting the feeling of hot and cold mixed up?

He's only little isn't he...ds (asd) got the feelings mixed up for quite a while i think...i had to sort of work it out myself and then put it to him if i suspected he was uncomfortable in a hot/cold way

I suffered from growing pains and still remember how bad they were, my DS also suffers. I also used to describe the feeling as cold, it's hard to explain, but it sort of does feel cold in the area where the pain is. We find a hot water bottle, rubbing and as others have said calpol if its bad all help. Sometimes just getting ds out of bed, having a cuddle and a little distraction does the trick.

How's his diet? It could be a lack of something maybe? I'm thinking out loud. I know anaemia makes me freezing cold so extrapolating out, perhaps he needs a bit of a general checkover to see if something's amiss.

Growing pains in legs quite common at this age from what I read on MN.

Has he had a virus recently?

I dont think he is getting hot and cold mixed up. He constantly comments on weather/food temps and he is almost always 100% right. And til last night we had the heating off anyway so the house was very neutral.

I do worry a bit about his diet, it is very limited atm we really struggle to get him to eat properly at the moment. He just refuses most food. He has rice milk at nap time and bed time and usually at night a couple of refills which we are trying to phase out. But he just doesnt seem to have much of an appetite, although he would eat crisps/choc etc if given but obviously we are trying to get him to eat healthy foods and just those foods as every now and then.

Though yesterday he did have an apple with peanut butter on it.

My DD's physio told me that growing pains don't hurt.

I too remember leg pain. Doesn't mean they were growing pains.

There are quite a few doctors these days who recognise that growing pains can hurt (though obviously they ought to be called by some fancy Latin name).

(and I have a strong distrust of people telling me that various conditions can't hurt; ime physios in particular often adopt this brisk approach to get their patients going)

the feeling of cold- could it be that he has poor circulation? dd does and it does particularly affect her hands and feet.

I know it sounds daft but try giving him a banana, there is lots of potassium in and this can really help with growing pains. Do his legs look a healthy colour or are they a bit pale? If so it could be bad circulation. HTH