The hip joint becomes weak, and is not able to handle any weight. This results in pain in the child's hip or knee. Occasionally, there will be an intermittent limp. In order to diagnose this disease, your health care provider needs to do X-ray studies of the child's hip. In addition, if there is knee pain, many providers will also X-ray the knee.
Treatment depends primarily on when the problem is diagnosed.
If the diagnosis is early, the child can be treated with crutches and not bearing weight on that leg. Most children do well, and can fully recover within 1 to 3 years. Severe cases require surgery as the child grows older. It is not uncommon for children to complain of knee pain when their pain is really due to their hip. This is called referred pain.