Back Pain in Children and Teens.

I never really thought about this until I chanced upon an article by Dr. Mohan Krishna on the medwonders.com website.

I suppose it's true that we tend to think of back pain as an adult condition. However Dr. Krishna makes the point that studies have shown that nearly half of school-age children have a sore back.

This is often put down as "growing pains" due to the myth that backpain is rare in children. However back problems in children need to be evaluated with more than usual thoroughness, by a specialist if need be, as the chances of a serious condition developing are more common in children.

Younger children are less likely to put mechanical stress on their back than teenagers, so their back problems are more likely to be of a non-mechanical nature and potentially more serious (infection, deformity, tumours etc.).

It is therefore appropriate to investigate back pain in children at a much lower threshold. And he goes on to list some red flag signs when such investigation would be justified.

This makes good reading, especially if you have teens or younger children in your family and they complain of back problems. You can go to the article here.