Hi Everyone, I was wondering what your experiences with increased training and Severs Disease? As some background. My DD started Rec classes at age 6, when she turned 7 she started complaining of heel and ankle pain which we kind of ignored (I know, I feel horrible) for a while. She also has juvenile arthritis so regular joint/bone pain is pretty normal. Within a few months she could not walk on her left foot at all. She ended up having to drop out of gymnastics, wear a hard cast for 6 weeks, and spent almost 8 weeks on crutches. The final diagnosis was severe Severs Disease. After she felt better she BEGGED us to get back into gymnastics. The rec coach spent an hour with her and asked us to put her on the pre-team. She practiced with level 2 for a week, got moved up to level 3, and has spent the year competing level 3 very successfully She has been the top scorer on bars for all age groups for each of her last 5 meets, she's also scored in the top 2 of her age group and the top 4 of all age groups in the AA at every meet. She's ALSO been dealing with Severs on top of everything. She spent 4 weeks on crutches this November and the orthopedist is considering another 4 weeks in a hard cast for her latest flare up. (State is this weekend - she is dealing with an arthritis flare up as well as Severs in both feet and we are just trying to support her at this point. My suggestion that she skip state was met with the same reaction as if I had suggested we remove her arms.) Now the coaches are wanting her to score out of level 4 at a mobility meet this summer and compete Level 5 this year. My question is, have any of you had any experience with this in a child with such severe Severs? At level 3 she practices 7 hours a week. Level 5 practices 14 hours per week. I'm concerned that increasing her training would ultimately just increase her injury problems and ultimately keep her out of the gym. Or is Severs just Severs regardless of how often they train?