Children should not have a lower back.
But many young athletes complain to their coaches, friends and parents that they suffer from such pains.
Unfortunately, most of them do not take this seriously and think that everything will pass without a trace.
In some cases, it really is a banal stretch. In other cases, things are not so simple, but problems can be avoided through timely diagnosis.
When we exchange the fourth ten, the pain in the lower back is hardly anyone you will surprise. And the older we become, the higher the risk of problems with the spine. Our intervertebral disks, peculiar shock absorbers between vertebrae, are beginning to wear out by this age. Because of incorrect and excessive loads, protrusions and hernias can occur. The facet joints of the spine grow old and perform their functions worse. Muscles and ligaments can also be a source of back pain.
In children, intervertebral discs are young and get good nutrition, so they should not be a problem. But active children who go in for sports, in a number of cases, subject their unformed spine to too much strain. Repetitive movements in sports such as gymnastics, rugby, volleyball, and when working with weights (bad technique, heavy weight, intensive training) can weaken the pars interarticularis - a structure that serves as a kind of bridge between the upper and lower intervertebral joint.
If the load on the spine is too high, the bone can not stand and crack. When the young athlete continues to load the spine, the fracture turns into a full fracture, Back pain may disturb both in the weakening of the pars interarticularis, and in the formation of a crack, and actually in the fracture.
In some cases, such a fracture can be seen on the X-ray, but US doctors recommend doing an MRI if the X-rays did not reveal any obvious causes of back pain. The bottom line is that such a fracture may not be visible on X-rays until it begins to heal and more bone will appear on this site. MRI can immediately reveal tissue edema and other changes.
What if this happened? With such damage, rest and refusal of sports activities are recommended. In some cases, doctors recommend wearing a special bandage that will limit movement in the lumbar region until complete healing. In a very small percentage of cases, it is necessary to perform an operation on the spine. Usually the healing process takes several months, but this is an individual process that needs to be monitored by MRI.
Sometimes fractures of this kind do not heal. Young athletes who did not receive timely assistance can learn about their problem much later, at the age of 25-30 years. By this time, speech will already go not about a fracture, but about spondylolysis, which is associated with additional complications.
The main lesson is that many complications can be avoided if, at an early age, the child is carefully examined with complaints of back pain. Parents should not ignore such complaints and hope that the problem will resolve itself.
American experts give the same advice to trainers and school nurses: if a sports child complains of low back pain, it is mandatory to send him to a doctor who specializes in sports medicine, spinal cord injuries or pediatric orthopedics. This can save the child from many years of suffering in later life.
medbe. en.
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