Osgood-Schlatter disease usually gets better without formal treatment. However, you and your child can take a number of steps to relieve the inflammation and pain. The main form of treatment involves resting the area so that it can heal. This may mean that your child needs to limit the time spent doing activities that aggravate the condition, such as kneeling, jumping and running, or must stop them completely for a period of time.

These other tips may help:

• Ice the affected area.

• For pain relief, try nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others), or take acetaminophen products (Tylenol, others). Not all NSAIDs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in children. Talk to your child's doctor or your pharmacist.

• When participating in sports, wear a pad over the affected knee at the point where the knee may become irritated.

• Wear a strap across the patellar tendon during high-impact activities, to help diminish the stress on the area in which the patellar tendon inserts.

• Cross-train with or switch to different activities that don't involve jumping or running, such as cycling or swimming, until symptoms subside.

• Stretch the quadriceps muscles. 

In the infrequent cases where pain is severe and other treatments don't help, your doctor may suggest your child use crutches until the knee heals, in about six to eight weeks. Surgery is almost never a treatment, but may be needed if fragmented ends of the bones haven't healed by the time the bones have stopped growing.

When your child is able to resume play depends on his or her pain tolerance. Most children can continue playing through a low level of pain without doing any damage. However, if your child plays through severe pain, the condition may worsen and might be more difficult to treat. Severe pain can also inhibit muscle function and make your child more at risk of some other lower extremity injury.

Once the pain has gone away, your child can gradually return to his or her prior activity level. However, your doctor may recommend that your child perform specific strengthening or stretching exercises for the quadriceps muscles to lessen the chances of Osgood-Schlatter disease developing again.

Pain may recur over time, but Osgood-Schlatter disease usually disappears once your child stops growing.