Leg aches and cramps

Hundreds of times over the last nine years I've found myself doing things for my son that remind me of things my mom used to do for me, and it gives me a comforting sense of the circular nature of things. Making special birthday dinners, playing cards together, going on trips and talking in the car, playing Candyland, eating at the picnic table in the summer. All sweet mother-child (or father-child!) activities that we carry with us as daughters and sons and try to replicate as parents.

One thing that my mom used to for me, that I have also done for Luke, is massaging aching, cramping legs in the middle of the night. I remember waking up with the calves of my legs hurting so much I'd cry. Mom would come in and give me an aspirin, and massage them until I was tired enough to go back to sleep. Growing pains, we called them.

Sure enough, the same thing happened with Luke. He used to wake up in the middle of the night, his legs aching and cramping, till he was in tears. I felt like I was channelling my mom as I'd sit on the edge of the bed, massaging his aching legs, warming the muscles with a heating pad, trying to cheer him and myself with the thought of how fast he was growing.

Maybe leg aches are ubiquitous (that's my 50-cent word for the day) with all kids, I don't know. Certainly there are many different causes for leg cramping.

But it turns out leg aches are also a common sign of food allergy, especially dairy or wheat allergy, according to sources including Dr. Doris Rapp, author of Is This Your Child? and Dr. James Braly, author of Hidden Food Allergies. Having just realized that I also have a dairy allergy, Luke's and my shared symptoms of childhood leg pain make sense.

I know Luke's leg cramps and aches almost completely disappeared after we took dairy out of his diet.

Of course I'm not saying that if a child has leg pain, the parent should immediately run screaming to the refrigerator and throw out all dairy or wheat. But it can be looked at when it is one of several symptoms. Rapp goes on to mention that wiggly legs are also a symptom of food allergies, in children and adults as well.

But I still like to think of them as growing pains---after all, when your 9-year-old boy is already almost 5 feet tall, he's been doing some serious growing! And although Candyland has been replaced with Yu-Gi-Oh!, I look forward to continuing all the good traditions we've started.

"I told the doctor I broke my legs in two places. He told me to quit going to those places." --Henry Youngman