Severs Disease
Sever’s disease or calcaneal apophysitis is the most common cause of heel pain in the growing child and is due to repetitive micro-trauma of the growth plate within the calcaneus (heel bone). Though horribly painful it is not a disease, but an overuse condition. Sever’s is most common between the ages 8 to 14 and is more common in boys than girls.
Symptoms
Causes
During development, our skeleton has plenty of open growth plates (soft spongy bone). These growth plates eventually become hard bone as we near skeletal development. The irritation of these growth plates can cause some serious pain.
Boys and girls whom develop Sever’s will likely have:
Treatment
If the symptoms are not improving then the underlying biomechanics need to be addressed. This may include:
Sever’s disease is self-limiting, this means that as the bony growth plate fuses solid the pain goes. The problem is, this may take MONTHS or YEARS to happen and can change our children’s perception of physical activity that can carry into their adulthood.
They are at a point in their lives where they are developing at a rate of knots, physically, mentally and socially. Sore heels will only slow this progress and are quite easy to manage!