Nothing to do with Alan Thicke

February 7, 2008 7:14 PM

Growing pains? Stigmata? What really were those pains I had as a child?

When I was a child, I frequently got what I referred to as “leg cramps”, even though they weren’t just in my legs. Symptoms: dull but very unpleasant aching in the backs of my knees, crooks of my elbows, palms of my hands, and arches of my feet. They generally occurred at night and often woke me up. Pressing on or massaging the area provided some relief, but I recall them being fairly agonizing. At some point, I stopped having them, although as an adult, on rare occasions (mostly when I’m very tired or hungover) I get an uncomfortable but much less painful sensation in the same areas.
Looking back, I’m curious. What causes growing pains? How common are they? A Google search provided lots of symptoms but not much of a biological explanation. I also didn’t see any mention of pain in hands or feet. Interestingly, I did see one citation about a suggested link between growing pains and migraines, and I used to get awful migraines as a teenager. Perfectly healthy, now, though.

posted by emd3737 to Health & Fitness (8 answers total)

Interesting. Ditto on the migraines and growing pains. For a memorable periods in both 7th and 8th grades, walking up stairs at school was cripplingly painful.

I saw an orthopaedics specialist and I was told that it was a) genetic (my father had migraines also), and b) due to rapid growth (again my father and I also shared this trait).

That was about err, 20 years ago now, though, so I'm sure something more sophisticated can be said about it.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:23 PM on February 7, 2008

Not much more to add other than similar experience: I got what my mother called "growing pains" in my legs. I remember them mostly at night, while trying to sleep. I also had migraines in my teens to early twenties.
posted by Savannah at 9:50 PM on February 7, 2008

Some helpful info fromm MayoClinic.com and Kidshealth.org.

Both sites seem to agree that it's from muscle overuse during the day.

(Yep, I got 'em too when I was a kid. My dad's remedy was always to go drink a glass of water. *grin*)
posted by twiki at 9:56 PM on February 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

Hormone-induced migraines are incredibly common - so getting migraines as a teen seems par for the course. Perhaps once the hormones more in line, they just went away on their own.
posted by Gucky at 11:18 PM on February 7, 2008

I grew 8 inches in one year (and 4 shoe sizes), so, yeah, I know from growing pains. My brother and a cousin were diagnosed with Osgood-Schlatter disease, but that's only the knees. My brother and I never had migranes, but my cousin (female) did.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:51 AM on February 8, 2008

Growing pains are typically a midpoint in strep A infections which lead to rheumatic fever, or possibly even PANDAS.

I saw several sites which said bacterial infections are a common trigger for migraines, "especially strep."
posted by jamjam at 9:19 AM on February 8, 2008

My godson is four and gets them so bad sometimes he squeals. Just a fact of life.
posted by chickaboo at 12:18 PM on February 8, 2008

I got this as a kid, too, and it hit a peak when I was about 7 or so. Doctor said it was "growing pains" something I didn't understand then and don't now. I would get the pains randomly throughout my youth, and it tapered off by the time I finished high school.
posted by zardoz at 4:51 AM on August 28, 2008