Children's joint pain may be a sign of rheumatoid arthritis, parents should pay attention to it. Many preschool and school-age children often tell their parents about joint pain. Many parents think that it is a normal physiological phenomenon in the process of children's growth and development, so they don't pay enough attention to it. However, Professor Zeng Huasong, director of Department of immunology, Guangzhou Children's Hospital, pointed out that there are many reasons for children's joint pain, which parents should not ignore.
What is children's growth pain? Zeng Huasong introduced that this is a normal physiological phenomenon in the process of children's growth and development. Physiologist research has proved that: 1-3-year-old children weight gain faster than the speed of height growth, medical known as the first weight gain period. For children aged 4-7, due to the rapid growth of height, the growth of lower limb bones exceeds the growth of muscles, and they often have slight pain due to the pulling of leg muscles and tendons. This kind of pain mainly occurs between the lower limbs and the knee and ankle joints, and it is easy to attack at night. With the growth of children's age, the growth rate of height slows down, and the pain will gradually reduce and disappear. Parents usually just pay attention to control their children's activity, reduce fatigue and tension, ensure enough sleep time every day, and maintain a good mood; When there is temporary pain in the lower limbs, as long as you gently massage the local area with your hands, let the children read books, or tell them stories, let them do some slight activities, move their limbs slightly, so as to distract their attention, you can effectively relieve the growth pain of the children.
In addition to growth pain in children, reactive arthritis caused by abnormal immune system reaction due to infection and other factors is a common cause of joint pain in children. For example, cold and fever make virus and bacteria invade the body, cause immune reactive inflammation, damage joint synovial cells, and cause reactive arthritis. In addition, rheumatoid arthritis in children should be paid special attention to. Zeng Huasong introduced that rheumatoid arthritis in children is an autoimmune disease. Due to virus infection, environmental changes, increased pollution, changes in diet structure, cold and humidity, as well as genetic factors, the number of children suffering from infantile rheumatoid arthritis in southern China is increasing, and the smallest can be onset within a few months.
Different from growth pain in children, rheumatoid arthritis in children is mainly swelling and pain of small joints, especially small joints of toes, but large joints can also be affected. In addition to the symptoms of joint pain, infants are more prone to systemic disease. The specific symptoms were fever, rash, hepatosplenomegaly arthritis and other organ involvement. The fever is of the type of flaccid fever, with one or two peaks in a day. The high fever can reach more than 40 ℃ and the fluctuation can reach 3-4 ℃ every day. Shivering can be accompanied before fever. During the fever, the patient's condition was serious, and the general condition of the patient improved after the fever subsided. Fever can last for several weeks or months. During fever, rash is often accompanied. The rash is pleomorphic. It is scattered erythema of different sizes. Occasionally, it can fuse into a piece or ring erythema. The rash appears for a short time and is easy to relapse. It is common in the trunk, and can also be seen in the limbs, even in the palms and soles of the feet. Most of the children had different degrees of liver, spleen and lymph node enlargement. Because of no obvious arthritis symptoms, it is easy to be misdiagnosed as septicemia. Compared with adult rheumatoid arthritis, because children's immune system has a process of gradual development and maturity, children's rheumatoid arthritis is relatively easy to cure, the important thing is to find and treat early, otherwise it will easily lead to disability and even life-threatening.
Therefore, Zeng Huasong stressed that 'pain' is a pathological state. Although sometimes children's joints only show pain, and there are no red, swollen, hot and other symptoms, parents should not easily think it is growth pain, and should take their children to the hospital for examination in time.