Pain by Site

This section covers common and significant problems with pain at certain sites due to key conditions not to be missed.

• We include Top Tips highlighting key points.
• Pain at different sites: Hip, Knee, Back, Foot, heel and ankle. 
• Chronic pain (including growing pains and medically unexplained pain).
• Fractures (and indicators of non-accidental injury).

We cover the principles of approach in the clinical assessment and investigations sections with emphasis on when to refer for specialist opinion.  Always be alert to the possibility of referred pain - e.g., hip pathology presenting as knee pain or thigh pain. 

Any presentation with limb or bone pain must consider the possibility of non-accidental injury.

Further information for pain at each site is available in reviews listed in the resources section.

The photograph below shows the knee joint and sites of common pathology to cause knee pain.

The photograph below shows the heel and ankle and sites of pathology