Waking up at 3 a.m. because your legs feel like they are quickly lengthening is one of the worst feelings ever. There is not much you can do to make the pain go away. Maybe taking an ibuprofen or massaging your legs may help temporarily, but the weirdest thing is the pains are gone by the time you wake up. And they don’t occur very often. These pains are often known as growing pains. They tend to occur in the calves, knees, and thighs, and occur in both legs at the same time. Mostly children get these pains, but they can also occur in teenagers and young adults. Dr. Larry Vogler from Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta explains that the stretching of the bones covering causes the pain.

Lisa Duchene from Penn State News wrote an article about growing pains and why they may happen. She stated that there was studies done that connected growing pains with shin splints, or overused muscles. According to parents, growing pains occurred more often on nights following active days. Studies have been that also prove that children who experience growing pains also have a lower pain tolerance. One study that was done measured 90 children. 44 of them experienced growing pains, and 46 of them did not. Their pain tolerance was measured using a dolorimeter, which applied pressure to places where growing pains are experienced. It was found that children with growing pains had more tender points and experienced more pain than the control children. There was another study done that looked at other possible contributing factors to growing pains. This article, located on The National Center for Biotechnology Information website discusses the possible effect that anatomy, fatigue, and psychological state may have on growing pains. According to Angela Evans, the author, the possibility that growing pains may be affected by anatomy was first brought up in the 1950s. It first tried to connect rheumatoid fever with growing pains, but that theory was rejected. The connection between growing pains and foot posture was looked at, but according to research done by Evans, it was found that leg pain and foot posture where unrelated. The topic of fatigue affecting growing pains is still discussed, and thought of the accumulation of waste products in the leg muscles affecting the pain is still talked about. It was found by most parents that the pain occurred more often after an active day, which connects the two. The psychological approach was first introduced in 1951, and is also still looked at today. The topic of girls being more prone to growing pains has been brought up because of emotional reasons, but that theory has been opposed because there is no scientific proof. Professor Frank Oberklaid from the Royal Children’s hospital studied children with growing pains and found that the parents of these children said that the child’s mood was more negative. These theories do not explain the cause of the pain but they bring up valid points that may contribute.

Scientists and doctors do not know the real reason why growing pains exist, but they do know that they affect most children. Growing pains are a thing, however unfortunately one does not grow after experiencing them.