Four year son limping and complaining of leg pain- is this normal?

Joyce - posted on 03/11/2012

Similar thing happened to my son when he was 7, except it wasn't just leg pain and limping. In addition to leg pain so severe he would not walk, he also had horrible stomach cramps. Not seeing anything wrong and knowing he'd not been injured, I thought he was faking so he could stay home from school. A few days later, his symptoms got worse and he developed painful purple spots on his legs. We had to literally carry him into the ER where they finally diagnosed him as having HSP purpura. It basically developed after he'd experienced a run-in with a mild infection after which his immune system went haywire and began attacking his blood & vessels. He started getting better almost immediately following a steroid injection and has not had any flare-ups since...he is now 9.

I'd keep an eye on it for sure. Hopefully your doctor was right and he's already on the mend. Good luck to you!

Julie - posted on 03/06/2012

Ask him if he fell recently -

DO check it out .. it might be what you think or something more serious ...

♥

Kristi - posted on 03/04/2012

It sounds like it could be a disorder called toxic synovitis. My brother had it as well as my male cousin. It usually affects males more than females. As soon as I read the topic I had to click on it. My brother and cousin are both grown men with no lasting effects from it.

Here is a link to read more about it. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth...

I hope this helps! Good luck and God bless.

Lisa - posted on 03/03/2012

Did they xray his feet? My son had the same issue and foot xrays found that he has flat feet and hammer toes. He would wake up at night from the pain after days with a lot of walking/exercising. He now wears orthopedic inserts in his shoes and rarely has any pain. Worth looking into.

Jayme - posted on 03/02/2012

My son has Perthes disease and it did start with knee pain and limping. It was intermittent over several months before we finally caught it in an X-ray. ("referred pain" is what the doctor's called it) So if the X-ray is good for your son then I'm sure he's fine, but if it comes and goes over the next few months then it wouldn't hurt to have another X-ray just to be sure.

Kay - posted on 03/02/2012

Typically growing pains seem to be in the shin bones around our house, anyway. Any place other than that I would be pretty leery about writing off as growing pains. Glad you guys got some answers.

Beth - posted on 03/02/2012

He sent us to get an xray and they did a finger prick to check his CBC levels. Platelets and white blood cells were elevated so that indicated some infection. He had a cold about 2 weeks ago that we didn't even bother going to the pedi for. He said that infection can settle in the hip joints and cause pain after a cold/ sinus infection so that is likely what it is-- toxic synovitis.



http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/...



He said that when a kid is limping they take it very seriously. Adults limping are no big deal but when a kid limps it could indicate something serious. Will keep an eye on him.



His Xrays looked perfect ( I got them to burn me a disc!) so thank God for that! I've never seen such pretty little hip bones

Crystal - posted on 03/02/2012

I wouldn't think it would be a growing pain if he's complaining about knee pain. Just my opinion. My kids (6 & 4) haven't complained about any growing pains, so I dont' really know. Have you consulted his Dr? I can recall having some growing pains as a kid, but it was more when I was older, in my pre-teens, and it was more in my hamstrings and thigh muscles. If you're worried, a phone call to his Pediatrician couldn't hurt. :) Mama's instinct.