Call or see your doctor if your child develops symptoms of this condition. Also see your doctor if your child has Osgood-Schlatter disease, and the prescribed treatments don't appear to be helping.

Your doctor will conduct a physical examination of your child's knee — looking for tenderness, swelling, pain, redness and range of motion. X-rays may be taken to look at the bones of the knee and leg and to more closely examine the area where the patellar tendon inserts into the tibia.

Complications aren't common. They may include chronic pain or localized swelling. Treatment of pain and swelling is generally with icing and anti-inflammatory medications. Even after symptoms have resolved, a "bump" on the tibia in the area of the swelling may remain. This bump may persist to some degree throughout your life but isn't a cause for concern, as it won't interfere with knee function, though the affected knee may look a bit different than your other knee.