Knee cramps

[honeyliaw]

My 5 years old daughter has severe pain(cramp like) behind the knee for 4-6 seconds, then relieve for 3 secs & then repeat the same scenario few times. All this will be over within about 2mins the most.
What I did is to lie her down & push her toes toward her body with her leg flat on the couch. Just like how I do if there is leg cramps. At the same time, I'll put some camphor oil around the knee area & gently rub to keep warm.
Question:
1) Is it something serious which I should refer to specialist? She has experienced this 4 times the past 2 months. She never had any major leg injuries.
2) Should I treat it as leg cramps though she insists that her thigh & calf muscles are not painful except behind her knee? She is fine & no after effect discomfortness on the muscles after that few minutes of pain.
Thanks.

honeyliaw

[6FT2]

Hey there

This could be as a result of a growth spurt.  What a lot of doctors call "Growing pains".

The pain comes from the fact that the bones grow faster than the muscles and tendons and causes them to stretch tighter than they usually would.  As I understand it, the muscle and tendons would grow in response to the stretching from the bones that have grown.

This is a normal occurrance and it is only in very rare cases such as "Osgood Schlauter" that it becomes a problem.  If the pain persists, starts spreading to the calves and/or increases in intensity, it wont do any harm to have her checked out by a GP to ensure that her bone growth is normal.

It is very rare...however, I am one of those rare cases...that problems arrises.

[honeyliaw]

Thanks for your response. Did you go thru this from very young age & how did you get over it? A GP has checked her & find there's nothing wrong except for home observation.

honeyliaw

[6FT2]

Yea, I went through it from most prob about 5 till I was around 16 and still have pains from time to time.  I just gritted my teeth through it all as my family thought I was being whiney and whingey and I started to think that everyone goes through that type of pain and that pain was "Normal"

My situation is unique tho as they discovered two years ago that I have what they call a connective tissue disorder.  The combination has left me with knee caps that sits too high up and dislocates very easy.  All of my joints are very loose and frequently gets inflamed and painfull.

[grendslori]

There is one MAJOR difference between Growing Pains and Juvenile Rhuematoid Arthritis: in JRA, no matter how hard you try, you cannot get a child to say the pain he/she feels is anywhere other than in a joint. Growing pains are located in muscle areas of the body, not in the joints. We went through this with our daughter at the age of three; it took two years for the doctors to finally figure out that she has JRA. I would not be so easily dismissing this as simple growing pains. See if you can get in to see a Pediatric Rhuematologist. The blood work that determines this disease in adults is often times negative in children even though they have the disease. This disease can range in severity as well; even my daughter's milder case caused a year's worth of physical therepy and a lot of pain to get her knees to straighten back out to where they should be. She was also having a hard time walking any distance and we carried her long after the time she should have been walking. We didn't have much choice in the matter. I am not saying your daughter has this disease, I'm simply saying to not dismiss it as growing pains; that could be a big mistake. Funny that the above poster mentioned Osgood-Schlauter, a couple of my daughter's second cousins, has joint problems, that being one of them. The other cousin has joints that keep fusing together and as a toddler, was hospitalized 48 times due to joint problems. Can't help wondering it this is a genetic thing??