Osgood-Schlatter disease — knee pain in active kids.
Sharp pain just below the kneecap during sport, made worse by running, jumping and kneeling. Osgood-Schlatter is one of the most common growth-related conditions in 10-15 year old athletes. Manageable with the right load adjustments and time.
What Osgood-Schlatter actually is.
Osgood-Schlatter disease is an apophysitis — irritation of the growth plate where the patellar tendon attaches to the tibial tuberosity (the bony bump just below the knee). When kids are growing fast, the bone outpaces the soft tissue, and the patellar tendon ends up pulling repeatedly on a growth plate that’s still soft. The result is local pain, swelling, and sometimes a visible enlargement of the bump.
It’s a self-limiting condition — meaning it resolves when the growth plate finishes fusing, usually 12-24 months after symptoms start. Our job isn’t to make it disappear faster (you can’t), but to manage symptoms enough that your child can keep playing the sport they love through the growth phase.
Most common in 10-15 year olds, more in boys than girls (though girls catch up as they hit growth spurts earlier). Particularly common in soccer, basketball, gymnastics, dance and running sports.
Six management strategies that genuinely help.
No single fix — a combination of these is what gets most kids through the growth phase with minimal time off sport.
Three steps from first visit to outcome.
