Osgood Schlatter, A.K.A. “growing pains”, is where the long leg bones are growing too fast for the muscles and tendons to keep up. So the kid has knee pain, sometimes for months, before he says anything. Occurs most often in athletic boys age 11-13.
So we’re talking Bonzo–textbook case, age 13, shoots baskets, roller blades, etc., complains sporadically of knee pain for the last 6 months, we (and he) thought he had just sprained it. We finally take him to the Sports Medicine doctor, hear the dread phrase “Osgood Schlatter Disease”.
Basically, you address the symptoms and wait for him to grow out of it. You do stretching exercises (“if the front of your knee hurts, that’s because your hamstrings are too tight”), put ice on it when it hurts (we heard all about the frozen bag of peas and the rubbing alcohol slushy–very kewl, I thought), take ibuprofen or Tylenol, and most of all, LAY OFF THE KNEE.
He came home from school yesterday, said, “My knee hurts real bad.” He went and sat on the couch with the ice bag for a grand total of 5 seconds, by the clock, and then he went outside to shoot baskets with Cody.
He says, “The stretching exercises hurt, they’re stoopid.” I say, “That’s because your hamstrings are tight, so keep doing them and it’ll loosen up.” He says, “The doctor was wrong, it isn’t Osgood Schlatter, it’s something else.” He doesn’t want it to be a ho-hum “syndrome”, he wants it to be a spectacular injury.
He was angry because, he said, “The doctor said don’t do it if it hurts, and everything hurts.” He wasn’t gonna do the ice, wasn’t gonna do the exercises, wasn’t gonna do the Tylenol, wasn’t gonna do the rest-the-knee thing. Finally he’s decided he’s gonna do some of the exercises, and some of the ice, but only so he can go back for his appointment in 2 weeks and laugh in the guy’s face, “ha ha, you were wrong, your sucky exercises didn’t work and my knee still hurts!”
So this morning we surfed the Internet for a while, together, looking up Osgood Schlatter, and discovered, among other things, that if he can’t manage to lay off the knee, he may end up in an immobilizing knee brace (hip to ankle) for X number of months to let it heal. Can’t tell yet whether this has had an impact on him–he says he knows 4 other guys in the 8th grade who have it, and they just keep on playing, too. “And Cam has a really huge bump on his knee, too!”
Anybody else had to deal with this? Shall I strap him to the couch, or what?
[insert emoticon for completely exasperated mom]
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And he’s also decided to be an expert on ice. The frozen peas are the kewlest so far, with the slushy second, and the Osco “grandma’s” ice bag a distant third.