Growing pains, for example in the legs, could indicate a greater risk of suffering from migraines as adults: this was revealed by a study published in the journal Headache, which involved 100 children followed over the following 5 years.
Growing pains, or pain in the limbs during adolescence, are often attributed to rapid growth.
However, there is no evidence to support this thesis and their cause remains unclear. Like migraines, growing pains develop rapidly and often recur. For this reason, Raimundo Pereira Da Silva-Néto of the Federal University of Paraná in Brazil followed the incidence of both conditions in 100 children. All participants were between 5 and 10 years old when they entered the study. Over the next five years, about half of them experienced growing pains, which doctors confirmed were not due to an identifiable cause such as physical trauma. None of the children had a history of migraines at the start of the study. At the end of the study period, participants filled out a questionnaire to assess whether they had had headache symptoms in the previous three months. The results showed that 76% of children with growing pains experienced headaches, compared to only 22% of children without growing pains. Additionally, more than half of children with growing pains were judged to have migraines, a throbbing headache that can increase sensitivity to light or sound. The same is true for less than 6% of children without growing pains.
This finding suggests that growing pains and migraines have a common cause, Silva-Néto says. One possibility is that the constriction and relaxation of blood vessels that causes migraines may also contribute to the throbbing pain of growing pains. The next step is to find out what happens to the blood supply of children’s legs as they grow and during growing pains through an ultrasound.
A difference in blood flow would confirm that the two conditions share the same mechanism. The study’s findings could also help pediatricians diagnose migraines in children earlier, Silva-Néto says.
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