growth plate question?

Question

if they hit u hard in the growth plate area in the upper tibia by the knee and it only hurts when it is touched (like a bruise feeling) but there is no pain during sports activities and there is no difficulty or pain during walking, is this considered a growth plate fracture or only a bruise?

what are symptoms of growth plate injury?

can a bruise stunt growth?

does the growth plate heal without permanent damage?

how resistant is the growth plate compared to the whole skeleton?

is it common to damage the growth plate?

Thanks

Answer 1

Well an x-ray will tell you if it is a bruise or more. These are questions for your doctor. Why are you concerned about your growth plate?

Some of these questions can be answers easily with a few simple searches on the internet. Others you need to ask your doctor as he can tell you great deal more, and explain to him why you are concerned.

randy

Answer 2

I believe there are several types of growth plates in the body because I was not aware of a growth plate located by the upper tibia until I researched this question. Evidently, there are different types of growth plates in more than just one area of a teent's body. So, if you haven't consulted your doctor or an Orthopedic Doctor about this, now might be a really good time to have an X-Ray, MRI or whatever it takes to determine if you are actually having problems with your growth plate. I
am sure your doctor can answer these questions for you much more accurately than any of us possibly can. Just out of curiosity, what sport were you playing when this happened and how long ago did you start feeling pain?

My son was playing football and fractured the growth plate in one of his feet located along the midline on the inside of his foot. I am not a doctor, but obviously the words 'growth plate' can pertain to several types of long bones. Fracturing a growth plate in the foot (yes, I took our son to an Orthopedic Surgeon so I do know what I am talking about concerning my son's growth plate in his foot) is painful for a while, it can look bruised, be very tender to touch, but we were told to keep ice
packs on the area to keep the swelling to a minimum. When you injure the growth plate in your foot, it doesn't seem to leave any permanent damage, as long as you protect it and stay off of it a while until the damage is healed. This is supposedly a quite common occurrence in young men that play a lot of sports. The swelling in the growth plate in the foot lasted for approx. one week before the injury settled down, but our son was told to stay off of it long enough to allow the fracture to heal. A bruised growth plate should also be given some time to allow the symptoms to subside, but it doesn't take quite as long as a fractured growth plate does to heal. As far as stunting your growth, I think that probably depends on your age. My son continued to grow after he injured the growth plate in his foot during Intermediate School. In fact, he grew over six inches in just one summer after 7th grade. Our son is now a High School Sophomore, 6'4" and still has a lot of growing left to do, so I don't think that an injury, if taken of properly, would stunt your growth, as long as you are still a teen. As far as this growth plate that is located in the foot is concerned, in comparison to the entire rest of the skeleton, it's usually an injury that heals quite easily as long as you give it time to heal -- approximately 3 to 4 wks. As far as the amt. of time involved for your growth plate to heal, it probably depends on the individual, where the injury is located, and whether you are doing physical therapy on a daily basis.
I fell and completely broke my Thoracic-8 (T-8) in my mid-back into and it took six months for that break to heal and that was without a back brace, so skeletal bones definitely take longer to refuse together than a fracture would.
However, if you want to read what Wikipedia says about the growth plate, here it is. I hope you can decipher this:
"The epiphyseal plate (or epiphysial plate, or growth plate) is the cartilage plate in the long bones of children and adolescents. The longitudinal growth of these bones occurs primarily at these plates. Around the age of 17 the epiphyseal cartilage cells stop duplicating and the entire cartilage is slowly replaced by bone. Bone growth stops. Ossification of all bones is usually completed by age 25. Once the adult stage is reached, the only way to manipulate height is modifying bone length via distraction osteogenesis."

Answer 3

I think it's probably a bruise but even if it sounds like on thing only a doctor can tell you your specific problem.

Answer 4

if it hurts that bad, go to the doctor..