Sever's disease: heel pain in active kids

If your child is 8 to 14, plays footy, netball, soccer or basketball, and complains of heel pain during or after sport, the most likely culprit is Sever's disease. The name sounds alarming, but it's neither a disease nor damage: it's an irritation of the growth plate at the back of the heel, it's the most common cause of heel pain in active kids, and it resolves fully once managed properly.

What's actually happening

During growth spurts, bones lengthen faster than muscles and tendons can keep up. The calf muscles and Achilles tendon become relatively tight, and they pull directly on the growth plate at the heel, an area of developing cartilage that's simply more sensitive than mature bone. Add hundreds of running and jumping impacts per week on hard ground, and the growth plate gets irritated. That's Sever's. It typically shows up during a growth spurt, often at the start of a season, and frequently in both heels.

How to recognise it

The pattern is fairly consistent: heel pain during or after running and jumping, limping or tiptoe walking after sport, pain when you squeeze the sides of the heel, and improvement with rest. It's most common right when training load jumps, the first weeks of a new season, or when a child adds a second sport or representative team on top of their existing one.

Managing it without stopping sport entirely

Complete rest usually isn't necessary, and telling a sporty kid to stop everything rarely goes well anyway. Management is about bringing the irritation down while keeping them active: adjusting training load (often trimming the extra sessions rather than cutting sport altogether), heel raise inserts in their sports shoes to reduce the pull of the Achilles, calf stretching and gradual strengthening, ice after sport when it flares, and hands-on treatment for the tight calf and foot mechanics feeding the problem. Supportive footwear matters too; worn-out runners and flat school shoes both make it worse.

How long it lasts

With good load management most kids improve within a few weeks to a couple of months, though it can grumble on and off during heavy growth periods until the growth plate matures. It leaves no long-term damage. The main cost of ignoring it is months of pain and sport the child stops enjoying.

When to get it assessed

Heel pain that causes limping, doesn't settle with a couple of weeks of load adjustment, wakes them at night, or follows a specific injury deserves assessment, both to confirm Sever's and to rule out the less common causes of heel pain in kids. We see plenty of young athletes from Berwick, Beaconsfield and Officer through winter sport season, and a proper plan usually keeps them on the park while the heel settles.

Book an initial consultation at RISE Sports & Spinal in Berwick. Clear diagnosis, hands-on treatment, and a plan that actually gets you better.