Our kids are all tall. No surprise there, my husband and I are both 6ft tall, and both of us are shorter than our cousins. Our youngest is growing SO fast though.. at one point, about a year and a half ago, he grew 6 inches in 6 months.
That's hard on your body.
For Matt, it caused a condition called "Osgood/Schlatters". Essentially it means his tendons couldn't keep up with his bones. It cased a bulge under his knee, that if you touched, would bring him to the ground. Severely painful. He needed a knee brace for all physical activity. Football, basketball, running in the yard - all impossible without the brace. This is not a weak kid, he has a high pain tolerance, but this knee was causing him constant, significant, pain. He couldn't sit with his knee bent. He couldn't do squats in the weight room. (His friends call this "the Oscar in Matt's knee", as in "Matt can't do the squats, because of Oscar.")
The Mayo Clinic website has a lot of great information on Osgood-Schlatters:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/osgood-schlatter-disease/DS00392
It's surprising how many people we know who have this. A lot of our adult friends still suffer with it, although it no longer causes them nearly as much pain, it never truly goes away.
One of our friends has a father that is a retired chiropractor. He recommended a chiropractor for our son, and that was a route we were getting ready to explore.
But at Matt's last appointment, the xray showed either a calcium deposit, or a bone fragment, floating loose, and that the osgood-schlatters was much worse, rather than improving. So they referred us to Sun Ortho.
The dr we saw at Sun Ortho is a marathon runner. Who also has Osgood Schlatters. This was reassuring.. Matt hasn't been able to run much at all in the last year. It's been too painful. This dr recommended a new treatment, not FDA approved, and not covered by our insurance. Normally those two statements make me nervous, but Sun Ortho has a great reputation, and has been great with our kids over the years through various broken bones and injuries. I tend to trust them. We made an appointment to have this experimental treatment done, and I came home and started some research. This is what I found:
http://www.coreconcepts.com.sg/mcr/osgood-schlatter-disease-osd/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_shockwave_therapy
Every review I found online was very positive. Results begin immediately, and it can continue to improve for up to 4 months. We went ahead with the procedure. ($350 out of pocket)
This is Matt receiving the ESWT treatment. Normally this is NOT painful, but because this part of his knee is so painful when touched, and the machine has to be pressed tight into that sore area, it was pretty painful for him.
This was Thursday morning. Thursday evening Matt sat with his knee bent. For the first time in 6 months. He did a couple of squats. They were painful, but he did them.
No contact - he can't kneel, and can't wear the knee brace, for awhile. His only "prescription" is lots of stretching exercises. We're pretty excited by how effective this has been already, and we're looking forward to seeing how this progresses.
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