Osgood-Schlatter Disease
Is your child having frequent growth spurts?
Are they suffering from knee pain when walking and/ or running and playing sports?
What is Osgood-Schlatter Disease?
Common cause of knee pain in highly active children ageing from 6-18 years.
Children are “skeletally immature”, meaning that their bones and muscles are still growing and developing.
Skeletally immature bones, have growth plates, located at the end of the bone.
The shin bone has a growth plate located on the front, just below the knee cap.
The quadriceps muscles are attached to this growth plate via the patella tendon.
Activities and sports involving running, sprinting, and jumping can cause irritation to this growth plate, as a result of the quadricep muscles repetitively activating and
tractioning over the plate.
This repetitive traction over the growth plate can cause it to become inflamed, which presents as swelling and pain in the knee.
Common symptoms
Front knee pain just below the knee cap, with or without swelling.
Can affect one or both knees.
May have bony prominence just below the knee cap.
Pain worsens with physical activity and sports.
Pain when running, jumping, springing, kicking and changing direction.
Pain when standing for long periods and/ or walking (for example: when your child is at school).
Pain when climbing stairs and hills.
Pain when kneeling and squatting
Pain when straightening knee
Pain associated with tight quadriceps muscles
Try this roller technique over the quadriceps muscles for pain relief!
Does my child need a scan?
No, save that money for your children’s sporting activities and schooling.
We can diagnose Osgood Schlatter’s in the clinic without a scan.
Does my child need surgery?
No, of course not!
At all costs we want to avoid surgery with children as their bones are still growing. If we intervene with this process, we can affect the growth plates at the end of children’s bones and disrupt their growth.
Although your child’s knee pain may go up and down for a few years whilst they are growing, once they have stopped growing, the pain will subside.