Anyone have/had a child with delayed puberty?

[DLgal]

Curious about any experiences with this. Son is 15 years old. Just hit 5'. His growth has been about an inch a year for the last 5-7 years. He went from the 25th percentile in height to the 1st percentile over time. He has VERY early visible puberty signs. According to the doctor, he is between Tanner stages 2 and 3, after examination. He has been in this state for about 3 years with no progression. He looks like he's maybe 11 or 12.

We did an x ray to determine bone age and it came back as a match for his chronological age. Pediatrician consulted with an endocrinologist who wants some preliminary bloodwork run before deciding if our son needs an evaluation.

I've tried to Google information and haven't found anything useful. Can anyone explain what may be going on here? The bone age points to there not being a growth hormone deficiency. He has no other medical issues or symptoms. He is slightly overweight, mostly in his midsection. He has autism and ADHD, but genetic testing didn't uncover any genetic syndromes that are associated with delayed puberty/slow growth.

I am 5'2". Husband is 5'3". Height isn't the main concern, although his expected final adult height is 5'6" and he is not on track to reach that at the rate he is growing.

Just trying to get any info on what we can expect while we wait on bloodwork order/results.

 

[dhardawa]

My ex didn’t hit puberty. When he was 18, he finally had to do a round of growth hormones for a year to mature and grow. You’d never know there was a problem now. his was caused by Crohn’s Disease.

I worried about my daughter. She was very small. She’s 20 now and topped out at 5’1”. I’m fine with that. She’s normal.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Curious about any experiences with this. Son is 15 years old. Just hit 5'. His growth has been about an inch a year for the last 5-7 years. He went from the 25th percentile in height to the 1st percentile over time. He has VERY early visible puberty signs. According to the doctor, he is between Tanner stages 2 and 3, after examination. He has been in this state for about 3 years with no progression. He looks like he's maybe 11 or 12.

We did an x ray to determine bone age and it came back as a match for his chronological age. Pediatrician consulted with an endocrinologist who wants some preliminary bloodwork run before deciding if our son needs an evaluation.

I've tried to Google information and haven't found anything useful. Can anyone explain what may be going on here? The bone age points to there not being a growth hormone deficiency. He has no other medical issues or symptoms. He is slightly overweight, mostly in his midsection. He has autism and ADHD, but genetic testing didn't uncover any genetic syndromes that are associated with delayed puberty/slow growth.

I am 5'2". Husband is 5'3". Height isn't the main concern, although his expected final adult height is 5'6" and he is not on track to reach that at the rate he is growing.

Just trying to get any info on what we can expect while we wait on bloodwork order/results.

Well, my husband was 4'11" through high school. Then he had his "spurt". He's 5'8" now. Not tall, but tall enough.

Both our sons waited until they were 18 to "grow". Both are about 5'10" now.

 

[Chickinvic]

I hope you find some answers. My kdid is also autistic with ADHD (but is 26 now). That is stressful enough without the additional worries. Hopefully it is nothing and he's just a late bloomer.

 

[mom2rb]

My son was 4’11 at 15 with no signs of puberty. He is now 21 and 5’11, when he started growing he grew fast.

 

[Skippy918]

Is he on any medication that might stunt his growth?
I was a late bloomer myself and my growth spurt wasn’t until I was almost 15, which is late for a girl.

 

[luvmarypoppins]

Went through this with middle son. All his bone and blood tests were fine but pediatric endo said he was like 2 years behind where he should be. I asked if all his asthma steroid meds could affect this. She said no. We were almost to the point where she was thinking of doing a testosterone shot to try to jump start him as she said but he finally had a growth spurt on his own.
Definitely ask about any med or treatment interactions.
Best of luck to your ds.

 

[barkley]

Curious about any experiences with this. Son is 15 years old. Just hit 5'. His growth has been about an inch a year for the last 5-7 years. He went from the 25th percentile in height to the 1st percentile over time. He has VERY early visible puberty signs. According to the doctor, he is between Tanner stages 2 and 3, after examination. He has been in this state for about 3 years with no progression. He looks like he's maybe 11 or 12.

We did an x ray to determine bone age and it came back as a match for his chronological age. Pediatrician consulted with an endocrinologist who wants some preliminary bloodwork run before deciding if our son needs an evaluation.

I've tried to Google information and haven't found anything useful. Can anyone explain what may be going on here? The bone age points to there not being a growth hormone deficiency. He has no other medical issues or symptoms. He is slightly overweight, mostly in his midsection. He has autism and ADHD, but genetic testing didn't uncover any genetic syndromes that are associated with delayed puberty/slow growth.

I am 5'2". Husband is 5'3". Height isn't the main concern, although his expected final adult height is 5'6" and he is not on track to reach that at the rate he is growing.

Just trying to get any info on what we can expect while we wait on bloodwork order/results.

my 22 year old son is also asd/adhd and in high school he still looked like an elementary aged kid. i always wondered if the adhd meds he had taken up until his sophomore year impacted this. it definitely impacted his weight (next to no appetite even when he was on his summer 'medication vacations'). if he didn't have a very noticeable receding hairline most people would still take him for many years younger. after he got off the meds and he started eating more normal amounts he did grow some more height.

if your son is on any meds i would definitely have that looked at, i also wonder how much physical activity plays a part in it. my son is not athletic at all and the adaptive p.e. he had in high school was minimal activity as well. when he went into a college program for special need adults they required him to take some type of p.e. class so he got more activity than he had ever done in his life and i noticed that when he started getting some even minor muscle tone he started to look a bit closer to his actual age.

the concern i would have with hormone therapy would be how it could impact any of his asd symptoms. we were in a parent support group w/other asd teen's parents and 'normal' hormonal changes during puberty can be so hard on these kiddos and cause some of their symptoms to go into overdrive.

 

[EMom]

What am I missing? If you are 5'2" and your DH is 5'3". why would you project your son to top out at 5'6"?

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

My DS is an ADHD kid and a late bloomer. He was under 5' up until 14 1/2 or so, and now he's sitting at 5' 7" at 16. He's still in the early part of puberty and the pediatrician predicts he'll get another growth spurt in the next couple of years and end up at 5' 10" or so. We did a bone age test when he was 5 and everything was normal, his bone age was the same as his chronological age, he's just a late bloomer. He has been on ADHD meds since 5th grade, sometimes he eats like a horse, and sometimes he forgets to eat at all.

 

[DLgal]

Is he on any medication that might stunt his growth?
I was a late bloomer myself and my growth spurt wasn’t until I was almost 15, which is late for a girl.

Yes, he takes a very low dose of an antidepressant for anxiety (not a large enough dose to impact growth) and started Concerta earlier this year for ADHD, which also wouldn't be the issue since he just started it.

 

[DLgal]

What am I missing? If you are 5'2" and your DH is 5'3". why would you project your son to top out at 5'6"?

That's how the standard calculation works. It's called the mid parental height formula and it is what the medical community uses to asses growth potential. The doctor did it, not me. DH used to be 5'4" but has shrunk due to osteoarthritis in his spine.

The final height projections for kids take into account more than just parental heights, because genetically, you are more than just your parents. My dad, for example, is 5'11. My husband's father was 5'10" and we both have uncles over 6'.

 

[DLgal]

my 22 year old son is also asd/adhd and in high school he still looked like an elementary aged kid. i always wondered if the adhd meds he had taken up until his sophomore year impacted this. it definitely impacted his weight (next to no appetite even when he was on his summer 'medication vacations'). if he didn't have a very noticeable receding hairline most people would still take him for many years younger. after he got off the meds and he started eating more normal amounts he did grow some more height.

if your son is on any meds i would definitely have that looked at, i also wonder how much physical activity plays a part in it. my son is not athletic at all and the adaptive p.e. he had in high school was minimal activity as well. when he went into a college program for special need adults they required him to take some type of p.e. class so he got more activity than he had ever done in his life and i noticed that when he started getting some even minor muscle tone he started to look a bit closer to his actual age.

the concern i would have with hormone therapy would be how it could impact any of his asd symptoms. we were in a parent support group w/other asd teen's parents and 'normal' hormonal changes during puberty can be so hard on these kiddos and cause some of their symptoms to go into overdrive.

Thanks for this. My son isn't a huge eater, but I'd say he eats a normal amount. As I said, he's borderline overweight at 118 pounds at 5'. I definitely do not have the "my teens are eating me out of house and home" issues that most parents of teen boys report, though.

He is in regular P.E. and always has been. He swims laps and rides bikes often (long, 10+ mile trail rides with me). He doesn't play any sports, but gets what I think is enough physical activity. My younger son is more severe and he has adapted PE due to some motor skills deficits, but at 13, he is taller than his brother and already well into puberty, so my older son being behind is glaringly obvious.

The only thing I can think of, medication wise, is the several years he took melatonin to get to sleep. We used it from about age 4-9. I wonder if that may have had an effect, although he was taking a tiny dosage (like 0.25-0.50mg). He also has quite severe environmental allergies, and has always taken an antihistamine, but is now getting allergy shots. I know of no issues with delayed development with those protocols, however.

 

[3boymthr]

Concerta has been document to have growth issues even with recent doses. As have several other ADHD medications. When oldest DS took Concerta we had to have his height measured and documented starting when he started taking it then every 3 months.

They saw no issues with his growth but he topped out at 5'4" so I think it definitely impacted him. His brothers who did not take Concerta are 5'8 and 5'9 and show signs of still growing though they are in their late teens. DH is 6' as are my brother and father. FIL was 5'8". However, when we addressed the height issue for DS, his pediatrician said to not only look at parents and grand parents but great and great great grandparents, that sometimes older genetics come in to play - especially since I'm only a little over 5'. My grandfather was 5'4" and my great grandfather was only 4'11". So maybe look at height history further back.

Also, when did your family members stop growing? DH was 5'6" at 17 but kept growing. He grew 2" at age 20 - we know this for sure as he was in the military and got in trouble for having uniforms where his ankles showed .

 

[DLgal]

Concerta has been document to have growth issues even with recent doses. As have several other ADHD medications. When oldest DS took Concerta we had to have his height measured and documented starting when he started taking it then every 3 months.

They saw no issues with his growth but he topped out at 5'4" so I think it definitely impacted him. His brothers who did not take Concerta are 5'8 and 5'9 and show signs of still growing though they are in their late teens. DH is 6' as are my brother and father. FIL was 5'8". However, when we addressed the height issue for DS, his pediatrician said to not only look at parents and grand parents but great and great great grandparents, that sometimes older genetics come in to play - especially since I'm only a little over 5'. My grandfather was 5'4" and my great grandfather was only 4'11". So maybe look at height history further back.

Also, when did your family members stop growing? DH was 5'6" at 17 but kept growing. He grew 2" at age 20 - we know this for sure as he was in the military and got in trouble for having uniforms where his ankles showed .

He started Concerta in May. He stopped the first week of June for the summer. Started back up late August.

The growth issues were brought up last year, at his physical when he turned 14 so there was already a noted issue at that time. He wasn't even on the chart at that point (he was -1%tile) The pediatrician wanted to give him one more year to see if puberty/growth would start spontaneously. He grew one inch in that year, 75% of it a week before his appointment, which was 2 weeks ago.

He is monitored for height and weight by his psychiatrist, every 2 months. She said the studies about the correlation between stimulants and growth issues are extremely inconclusive, with some saying they do affect it and others saying they don't at all. She said it is a difficult thing to study because there is large natural variation in puberty onset age and growth potential isn't an exact prediction either. My son very much needs the meds.

FWIW, paternal great grandparents were not tall people. On my side, my grandparents weren't tall either. My paternal grandpa was around 5'9. He was probably the tallest of the "great grandparents." My husband stopped growing at 17. He enlisted in the military and his height hasn't changed (well, he lost an inch). I stopped growing right around 15.

Again, we aren't necessarily concerned with his final height. I'm more concerned that he may have a health issue that is affecting his other hormones, like a thyroid issue or something.

 

[ColoradoDisneyFreaks]

He started Concerta in May. He stopped the first week of June for the summer. Started back up late August.

The growth issues were brought up last year, at his physical when he turned 14 so there was already a noted issue at that time. He wasn't even on the chart at that point (he was -1%tile) The pediatrician wanted to give him one more year to see if puberty/growth would start spontaneously. He grew one inch in that year, 75% of it a week before his appointment, which was 2 weeks ago.

He is monitored for height and weight by his psychiatrist, every 2 months. She said the studies about the correlation between stimulants and growth issues are extremely inconclusive, with some saying they do affect it and others saying they don't at all. She said it is a difficult thing to study because there is large natural variation in puberty onset age and growth potential isn't an exact prediction either. My son very much needs the meds.

FWIW, paternal great grandparents were not tall people. On my side, my grandparents weren't tall either. My paternal grandpa was around 5'9. He was probably the tallest of the "great grandparents." My husband stopped growing at 17. He enlisted in the military and his height hasn't changed (well, he lost an inch). I stopped growing right around 15.

Again, we aren't necessarily concerned with his final height. I'm more concerned that he may have a health issue that is affecting his other hormones, like a thyroid issue or something.

DS has been on Concerta since he started ADHD meds in 5th grade. He was also taking melatonin because he couldn't sleep well, but ended up stopping because he would get vivid dreams where he experienced almost a sleep paralysis and it freaked him out. He absolutely needs the meds as well, and we don't do the school vacation breaks, he's on them all the time. Our pediatrician still predicts that he'll end up the tallest in the family.

When did the rest of your families stop growing? Are there any other late bloomers? Both DH and I weren't late bloomers, but we both have brothers who were, mine more drastically than his, so the doctor figured that it just runs in our families.

 

[DLgal]

When did the rest of your families stop growing? Are there any other late bloomers? Both DH and I weren't late bloomers, but we both have brothers who were, mine more drastically than his, so the doctor figured that it just runs in our families.

I was kind of a late bloomer, began menstruation around 15.5 and stopped growing right around 16. I was 5'3" when I got my driver's license at 16 and that's been my height ever since. I also was a pretty intense child athlete, primarily gymnastics, so I had a VERY low body fat percentage for a long time, and that is why my doctors suspected I was a late bloomer. Both my sisters went through puberty earlier than me, my older one around 12 and my younger one around 13. Neither were particularly athletic. Height wise, we are all similar. My mom is 5'2", as is my older sister. My younger sister is 5'4".

My husband stopped growing by 17, but he was a slow creeper. He enlisted in the USMC at age 17.5 (with his parents signing a waiver so he could) and he was 5'4" then and never got taller. However, he had "matured" physically by age 14. His younger brother is tall. He is about 5'11" (that's tall for my husband's family). He did the majority of his growth probably between 14 and 18, because he is a lot younger than my husband and was at our wedding at age 13 and was shorter than me. His sister is about 5'7" and I don't know much about her timeline, as we aren't close to her.

 

[DisneyOma]

That's how the standard calculation works. It's called the mid parental height formula and it is what the medical community uses to asses growth potential. The doctor did it, not me. DH used to be 5'4" but has shrunk due to osteoarthritis in his spine.

The final height projections for kids take into account more than just parental heights, because genetically, you are more than just your parents. My dad, for example, is 5'11. My husband's father was 5'10" and we both have uncles over 6'.

Genetically, how can you be more than the DNA that came from the egg (mother) and sperm (father)? That makes no sense to me at all. Where is the more coming from, genetically?

Also, each child is so unique - environment can affect a person's development just as much as genetics. My older daughter was a gymnast, then a figure skater. She had a huge growth spurt in high school, when most girls are done with that style of growth. Then she had another one freshman year in college, at the age of 18. The "standard calculation" would have placed her between her parents in height, much closer to my height of 5'3". The girl is actually almost as tall (by less than half an inch) as her 5'9" dad. Standard calculation does not take into effect nutritional changes in the population over decades, does it? We've reached a tipping point for that, as generations are getting fatter as a whole, but also getting more nutrients and better health through vaccines, etc. It also would predict our population as getting shorter if the parents were close in height and had a lot of girls.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

My DH was 5'10" when he graduated high school, wore a size M shirt, no facial hair at all, and voice still hadn't dropped. (sounded like Mickey Mouse with a Southern accent on helium, lol).

We started dating when he was just barely 22. He was 6', wearing a size L-XL shirt. Shaved his face once a month, even though it was all peach fuzz, and forced his voice down an octave when he talked.

Together for almost 27 years. He's now 6'4", 3XLT shirts, a beard down to the middle of his chest, and his voice is deeper.

I used to give him grief that our DD (born when he was 23) would hit puberty before him.

 

[DLgal]

Genetically, how can you be more than the DNA that came from the egg (mother) and sperm (father)? That makes no sense to me at all. Where is the more coming from, genetically?

For real? It comes from the grandparents, great grandparents, etc. That's how genetics works. The visible traits of each parent are not the only traits carried by their DNA. My parents both have brown hair and brown eyes. I'm blonde with blue eyes. My grandfather was blonde and had blue eyes. Those traits were not expressed in my mom, but they showed up in me. My husband has black hair and brown eyes. Both our sons have brown hair, one has blue eyes and one has green. Neither me nor my husband has brown hair and no one has green eyes. That's how traits get passed down.

The mid parental height formula calculates a childs growth POTENTIAL, but many kids overshoot that. When a child is more than 3 standard deviations below their projected adult height (following the percentile on the growth chart), that is when a growth/development problem needs to be investigated. This is how endocrinologists have decided they will proceed with kids who exhibit growth delays.