Question

A 12-year-old female is admitted with severe pain in her spine. While checking history, the patient and her mother state that several weeks ago the patient was treated for an upper respiratory infection. The infection subsided after several days of taking antibiotics. However, several days later, the child complained of joint swelling and pain in her right elbow, which subsided, but then seemed to migrate to her left knee. A week later, today, the child began to complain of worsening back pain. The mother has been treating the pain with over the counter pain medication and heat and ice packs, but this did not seem to help. What are the possible causes of the pain and how you would proceed?

Answer 1

As the child already suffered from respiratory infection, spina pain may be due to local infection. This local infection may be due to systemic diseases, or gout or local infection.

Olecranon bursitis may causes swelling and pain at the tip of the elbow. So condition made the child to suffer from swelling and pain at elbow.

To treat this spine pain, it would have better to proceed with anti inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen which may reduce both swelling and pain.