Chronic Pain
Non-specific aches and pains are common and the differential is broad.
Key points include:
- Careful clinical assessment and exclusion of red flags are important.
- Hypermobility is common in children and a feature of normal development so it is important not to ascribe all aches and pains to hypermobility - many hypermobile children have no pain at all.
- Inflammatory joint or muscle conditions, metabolic disease (osteomalacia, thyroid disease) can result in aches and pains.
- Growing pains are a diagnosis of exclusion.
- Chronic pain is a feature of idiopathic pain syndromes which are also called Chronic Regional Pain Syndromes (CRPS).
