Sports and Injuries in Teens - Stress Fractures in the Lower Back
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Nancy L. Brown, PhD
A doctor I work with recently said she was concerned by the increase in lumbar stress fractures she was seeing in young athletes. She said she used to see it mostly in gymnasts but now she was seeing it in teens who play all kinds of sports.We hypothesized it might be the long hours of practice and tournaments on weekends that sometimes include 6-8 hours of play a day. I also think it may reflect the increasing tendency for parents and teens to "raise the bar," in academics, athletics, everything - to give our children the best chance of success that we can.
To get some more information, and a different perspective, I went to Jolie Bookspan, my favorite Fitness Fixer. Jolie had a couple of interesting hypotheses including an increase in lumbar stresses from severely overarching (increasing inward curve) of the lower back, and some really bad sitting posture habits. In addition, Jolie is concerned that teens are not getting enough exercise or spending enough time in the sun to have the strong muscle and healthy bones that would protect them from these fractures.
Another concern is that the young athletes have typically been experiencing pain for quite a while before seeking care, making the diagnosis and treatment more difficult. Teens should not be experiencing back pain. If your teen complains of back pain, please see his or her doctor.
Photo credit: Fitness Fixer
Labels: Healthline, Sports, Teen Health
2 Comments:
At Thu Jan 28, 05:49:00 PM 2010,
Tom said…
I'm 15 and play basketball and soccer and ive already had a bilateral pars fracture and rested for six weeks this summer and did all the rehab and made it through a whole soccer season without it coming back, but now its bball season and i can feel the pain again and think its back. What should i do should i just tell the coach im done and go thru the whole deal of getting a bone scan and xrays and the rehab and everything this summer or should i just get thru the last two weeks of season and rest on my own all summer and not do any summer league. Plz give me advise and suggestions because i am really depressed about this and hate going thru this shit it seems like over and over and its only been once and a half. So plz give me advise.
At Sat Jan 30, 03:42:00 PM 2010,
Nancy L. Brown, PhD said…
You really need to see a specialist who treates pars stress fractures in adolescents. This is too complicated an issue to handle with email advice. A sports medicine doc suggests you should not continue to play BBall if pain is present while playing or is getting progressively worse. There are multiple possible causes for the recurrence of the back pain. It may or may not be related to previous pars fractures. Even if it is, it is unlikely to require the significant period of rest that is typically done for initial fractures.
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