Growing Pains in Kids. Is there a reason for concern and what type of doctor is best suited to evaluate your child?

Often, we see parents as patients that ask us about pain and/or postural changes in their child.

The postural issue is important, maybe even more so in kids as this case mentioned below demonstrates.

Pain is always a signal that something is wrong, but often kids don’t experience much pain.

Kids tend to have a higher pain threshold which may serve to keep them going as they experience all the falls and injuries most of us experience as kids.

Most parents that have a child complaining of pain will take them to the pediatrician to see if they have a problem.

Many very observant concerned parents may take their kids in when they notice a postural change. Of course, many of these early postural changes are subtle and easy to miss.

Often when a parent takes their child in to a pediatrician the parent is reassured and told that there is nothing wrong and that the child is just experiencing ‘growing pains‘ or the postural change is something that is common and ‘keep an eye on it.’

This was the case of the 6 year old girl’s x-ray that is seen to the right. 

The girl’s mother is a patient at Hagebusch Chiropractic.

Her 6 year old daughter had been complaining of neck and back pain for over a year.

The mother took her child to her Texarkana pediatrician several times. She always got the same reassurance…

The doctor said, there’s nothing wrong, your 6 year old daughter is just experiencing ‘growing pains.’

Her daughter continued complaining of pain.

Finally the concerned mom asked the pediatrician if she should take her to her chiropractor. The doctor immediately dismissed it saying he doesn’t believe in chiropractors.

The mother pushed back saying, you aren’t helping her and she continues to complain of pain. I’m going to take her in.

She found another pediatrician who agreed with the mother and referred her daughter in to see us… and she did.

By the way chiropractors are direct access providers, you don’t need to see anyone else to see a chiropractor.

Rarely an insurance carrier require seeing a family medical doctor first before seeing any specialist. Chiropractors are specialists in these insurance policies.

Did the above mentioned pediatrician do something wrong?

I do want to point out that the pediatrician that didn’t refer out was probably trying to do what he thought was best for the child.

He simply didn’t know that there was a problem (more on that in a moment) and that a chiropractor could help kids.

With regard to chiropractic – It’s not really just his fault that he didn’t understand what chiropractors do.

I have to say a big part of the blame falls on my profession, chiropractic.

Chiropractors haven’t done a good job explaining what we do and why we do it to the medical professionals.

A 6 Year Old Girl Presents To My Texarkana Office With Neck and Back Pain.

The x-ray above to the right is an x-ray of the little girl’s upper to middle back.

She’s already developing a scoliosis. She didn’t have ‘growing pains.’

The girl is developing a spinal problem that is very likely to worsen without early intervention.

It’s still early and like most health problems it’s better to intervene early rather than late.

Of course, we could just wait and see how bad her scoliosis will get, but that really doesn’t make sense.

We look at things differently as chiropractors.

Chiropractors realize that if there is pain, there is a problem. It’s not debatable. The size of the problem can vary, but something is causing the pain.

It’s up to the doctor, regardless of doctor type, to determine what is causing the pain and determine the treatment necessary to get the problem better.

If the doctor seeing the patient whether an MD, Chiropractor, or Osteopath can’t determine the cause, then that doctor should refer to someone else for evaluation.

Our job is only to take care of the person in front of us.

The same is true of a postural change…

Whether it’s ‘poor‘ posture, a hump, a high shoulder, abnormal rotation of an arm or leg, or abnormal muscle tone across any joint.

Something IS causing the postural change.

We advise having your child checked to make sure that these postural distortions are happening.

By the way, the 6 year old girl mentioned above is improving. She is reporting less pain and even more importantly some of the abnormal findings are improving.

Early evaluation and intervention in any health problem is better than waiting for a major problem.

This is true in the case of every chronic disease process, including musculoskeletal and neuro-musculoskeletal problems.

If you would like to bring your child in to see Dr. Hagebusch in Texarkana for a check up, give us a call and we’ll be happy to set it up for you!