LUCKY ERIN

For the past couple of years Erin has complained about pains in her hips and knees. In 7th grade when she started to run cross country, she had to stop for a couple of weeks when her hip became sore. The spring of 7th grade she came home one day and told me that her knee had gotten locked in a bent position when she had tried to straighten it after sitting on her knees during class. It was so painful that she almost passed out. She ended up crying in school, something that she never does. She was finally able to get it unlocked by bending it even more and she felt her knee "slide" back into place. Then this year in 8th grade she had a similar problem where her knee would hurt when she tried to straighten it (one time after sitting with her legs bent up under her). In between these incidents she would often tell me about minor aches and pains. I decided that although I didn't think she had a serious problem, we should take her to an orthopedic doctor.

The visit was definitely worth the $15 copay. He told us that it is very common for adolescent girls to have knees that tend to slide back and forth. He showed us by putting marks on her knee and then moving it from straight to bent. Sure enough her knee slid about a half inch to the outside. Very creepy. He also told us that as her hips widen she would get pain there too. He said some girls suffer much more than she has and it can get very painful. He told us that when she sits on her legs with her knees bent that causes inflammation under the knee cap. Then when she tries to straighten them they move and because of all this inflammation it really hurts. The good thing is that her knees and hips should feel better after adolescence.

He then told her to stand and pointed out that her arch was okay until she stood and then it would collapse. He said that her feet tended to roll in because of the collapsing arch and that puts more stress on the moving knees and growing hips. He recommended that we buy "stability" running sneakers. He gave us a website to go to in order to know which sneakers to buy. When I came home, I checked the sneakers that she had used this year for running and found out that they were stability sneakers. I figured that was why she didn't have a problem while running this year. At the time I had thought it was odd that she didn't complain during the time she was running, all the problems happened at other times of the year. I think we both feel happy that all her problems are just normal things that will eventually get resolved.