Overview
- Growing pains are described as harmless, muscle-based leg aches that typically occur in the evening or at night and resolve by morning.
- Recommended relief includes gentle leg massage, a covered hot water bottle or heat pack, and children’s ibuprofen or paracetamol.
- Parents are advised not to give aspirin to anyone under 16 unless it has been prescribed by a doctor.
- A GP should be consulted for one-sided pain, pain in the morning or with activity, joint involvement, rash, swelling or unusual bruising, high temperature, marked tiredness, limping, poor appetite or weight loss.
- Healthier Together recommends twice-daily hamstring, calf and quadriceps stretches—three repetitions per leg, held for 30 seconds—with symptoms noted to wax and wane over months and to be more common after intense activity or with joint hypermobility.