Question
My 10-year-old child has been mainly complaining of leg (knee) pain for about two to three years. The pain is somewhat hard to describe, and the child is particularly uncomfortable. However, it only lasts for a short while and then subsides. Sometimes when we take the child to the hospital from home, the pain has already stopped by the time we get there. X-rays in Qianxi showed no issues. Some say it might be due to calcium deficiency, as the child is a bit tall.
Answer
There are generally three main causes of leg pain in children. Commonly, these include: 1. Transient synovitis of the hip joint. This is a common disease in childhood, characterized by leg pain and limping. Due to the distribution of the obturator nerve, most children complain of knee pain, but the main site of the lesion is in the hip joint. In mild cases, hip joint examination is normal, while severe leg pain may result in pelvic tilt, making the affected limb appear longer than the healthy one. The pathogenesis of the disease is not yet clear; known causes are ranked by frequency from high to low as upper respiratory infections, especially those occurring about a month before onset; trauma; and unknown causes. For children with mild lesions, conservative treatment can be adopted, including bed rest and prohibition of weight-bearing walking. Most children can recover normally within 3-5 days, but to prevent recurrence, it is generally recommended to rest for two weeks. For those with a course lasting over a week and more severe clinical symptoms, in addition to medication treatment, hospital traction therapy should also be performed. If the duration exceeds two weeks, a pelvic X-ray examination is necessary to rule out avascular necrosis of the femoral head.