Can anyone give opinion on this knee issue with my DS?

[Alabasterangel6]

I’m getting increasingly frustrated. He is in tears and pain every day over this.

DS is 8. At the start of the holidays he complained of a pain in his left knee. He tells me the pain is below the kneecap but in the knee not the shin. There is no swelling, redness or heat. No squishyness. No click. The pain came and went. There seemed to be an increase with either a lot of movement or no movement. So for example it would be acutely painful after a walk, or in the morning, and at times disappear altogether. Cold helps. When it’s bad he literally won’t even let me touch the knee and wants to keep it bent.

GP visit one - told there was no physical sign of anything skeletal, happened to get DS in a good hour so no pain obvious. Told to give it a week and try ibuprofen which we did but it exacerbated DSs asthma so stopped that. Pain no better.

GP visit two. GP still not convinced it’s skeletal and dubious about an X-ray (fair enough) and says switch to paracetamol, more ice/cold and give it another week. DS continues to wake crying in pain during the night, it’s now impacting his ability to walk anywhere, do any sports etc.

Literally overnight that week, it disappeared.

5 days later the exact same pain appears in the OTHER knee. We repeat the paracetamol and cold, all the symptoms are exactly the same.

Third GP visit. GP looks at me like I’m mad as again it’s in a good hour but I show GP a video of DS crying in pain and not letting me near his leg, unable to stand, etc. GP says ‘let’s give it another fortnight as I don’t actually know where to refer you as I don’t know what this is, other than a soft tissue injury’

There has been no ‘event’ / accident or injury and the pain is so weird as it’s in both legs.

DS has come home today from school absolutely beside himself again. He can’t do PE, he won’t be able to do school swimming next week, he’s had to skip home swimming lessons, he can’t go on a a scout trip this weekend. He’s in absolute agony for about 3-4 hours a day.

I’ve no idea what to do with this. back to the GP I suppose but what should we be trying to achieve? Pediatric orthopaedics? We have private healthcare for the DC on my work policy so I could use that?

I feel really miserable that he’s in so much pain and it just feels like we’re not resolving this.

Has the GP considered osgood schlatter disease?

Exactly what Milliways said. I developed OS at 10 and my symptoms sound very similar to your DS’. Good luck with getting it sorted.

Was about to suggest the same.
DS(15) has had it and also Severs disease which is the ankle equivalent. I would say they started about 11/12 when he started growing in big spurts.

He suffers on and off as he grows, a big growth spurt will usually trigger a few months of it. There is not a lot you can do apart from good physio but our private healthcare paid for a few sets of physio when he had flare ups. That really helps him manage it.

Was also going to suggest same as PPs my daughter is a gymnast and a number of her teammates have had this.

Pp got there before me! Good advice. Does sound like O-S. Exacerbated by excercise and in ds case definitely worse when having a growth spurt.

Wow. Thank you. The diagram on that link is exactly where he is pointing when the pain occurs. He’s only just 8 - that article says he could have this till 14? How the heck do we cope with that in a sports mad DS?

Should I be hopeful the first knee seemed to disappear completely and hope this second may do the same?

He’s always been absolutely tiny (but I am!) but this summer has definitely had a growth spurt.

Don't know if anyone knows, but I suspect O-S/Severs refers to what used to be called 'growing pains'?

Was coming on to say osgood schlatter disease too, my son had this at 9/10 years of age.

@WatcherintheRye - I can't quite remember but I think it's something about rapid growth and something not keeping up? Particularly common in sporty children I think

watcher when I’ve looked into ‘growing pains’ it says they occur in the bones not the joints and wouldn’t prevent someone participating in a sport or cause a limp. Interesting though and it did have me wondering!

I would also suggest Osgood schlatter disease. There is a way of taping the knee to enable your son to continue with sport. I would recommend a visit to a sports therapist for advice, my son was able to continue training and competing with careful strapping and physio.

Amazed the GP didn’t suggest OSD. My son had similar around that age, and lots of people said this is what it was, and GP confirmed. DS is now 12 and fine btw, has been for at least a year. We had to dial back a bit on excessive exercise but to be honest he kept doing the stuff he really loved. Those muscle packs that you put in the freezer helped.

My DD has had OS, physio and taping has helped enourmously

today thank you that’s reassured me. If we can get the a formal diagnosis it looks like physio is the way to go and hopefully someone can teach us that. If not he has a sports physio who sometimes visits his cricket club so maybe they’d help too. I really don’t want him to stop the stuff he loves. I hated sports so much and I don’t want to put him off!

My DS had something v v similar, and it's wasn't Osgood Schlatter, it was Sinding Larssen Johanssen Syndrome - apparently!

DS had a growth spurt and was also doing tonnes of exercise. Basically they said his pain was cos his muscles were tight and his tendons were effectively trying to pull bits of bone off - hence ACUTE pain, just like your poor DS. Mine was on crutches for a bit before it was all , diagnosed properly, but as soon as it was, and he did exercises, it honestly disappeared like magic.

Google some really good quadriceps stretches and get him to do them lots. If it's either OS or SLJ, it'll make a huge difference.

We saw paed physio but the stretches are really simple. And sooooooo effective. Well worth getting started immediately.

Brilliant, will get him looking on you tube with me in the morning. Thank you.

I have just taken my ds to the docs today about the same in both knees. He is 11 and has been complaining for a few weeks. His dad told me that's what it was but I just wanted to make sure. His are swollen but he says it's pretty painful. The doctor he saw today said it usually calms down within a few months.

DS (now 15) is also really sporty and did have about a month off sport a couple of times over the years but he finds that doing the physio recommended stretches before and after sport really help even when not having a bad spell.

O-S/Severs are different to growing pains as DS also gets them whenever he has a growth spurt. Difficult to describe but he could always feel the growing pains at night before a growth spurt whereas the O-S/Severs seems to occur during and after the growth spurt.

Good luck OP!

oscars schlatters disease