Question:
Hello,
I’m nearly 16. I recently came back to school after the pandemic I notice a lot of my friends have a lot deeper voices and are almost as tall or taller than me. I compared my height chart, previous voice recordings of myself from three years ago, and old pictures and noticed that I haven’t really changed over the pandemic. I went to my pediatrician for a physical and he said that my bone age is around 14 and the Tanner Stage is 3. My parents are 6’2 (father) and 5’5 (mother) and I’m 5’10 and my brother is 6’3 but when I was 13 I was 5’6. I took your Tanner Stage Calculator and it said I’m 3.3. What I’m really asking is if I’m just never going to get out of puberty, and like that one guy from a doctor’s show, I have to take HGH therapy to have a normal adult life.
Answer:
I will agree that something doesn’t add up, but I don’t know enough to say what it is. Tanner Stage 3 is your rapid growth phase and your doctor’s assessment, your Bone Age test, and your self-assessment with the Tanner Stage Calculator all agree. What I don’t know is when you entered stage 3 and how long you’ve been in that stage.
There are some medications that have as a side effect a slowing of a boy’s growth and development, but I have no idea if you are taking one of those.