Last updated on August 4, 2020
Question:
Do you get a growth spurt at the same or similar time with your dad? I asked many of my friends and they said they all had a growth spurt at the same time with their dad or relatively close to it.
Also, because I am short (I am 14 and a half years old and I’m only 5’6 compared to my friends who are 5’7 and 5’8 and 5’9 and I already got lots of pubic hair and I have some little chin hair growing meaning I will only grow about an inch more). I was thinking about how the whole growth hormone injection works. How much is it and what are the effects of it if it’s done to me? Also, how does the growth hormone injection work? Do they just insert it to your blood or to the bone? How long does it take and what are some of its side effects? I hope you can reply as soon as possible because if there is no harm with using growth hormones except its large cost, I wouldn’t hesitate to use it.
Answer:
A boy grows from birth at a fairly steady rate until he reaches adolescence. Then, during Tanner’s stage three of development, his growth rate doubles or goes even higher for a period of time. As he enters stage four, the rate of growth then declines and by the time he reaches stage five, it essentially stops. To estimate what stage of development you are in, see the Tanner Stage Calculator for Boys.
Generally boys will go through adolescence at about the same time as their fathers, but it is not necessarily fixed in stone. After all, you do get half your genes from your mother and they have some impact on your rate of development.
You didn’t supply enough information for me to guess what stage you are currently in, so I can’t estimate whether you will grow more or not. If you are in stage four, then yes, you will only grow a few more inches. Actually a doctor can find out for certain by doing an x-ray of your growth plates (the ends of your bones where growth takes place). As you get near the end of adolescence, the growth plates close off. Once they are closed, you won’t grow anymore regardless of any hormones you might take.
hGH (Human Growth Hormone) was developed as a replacement therapy. Some people don’t produce enough growth hormones and so they can’t achieve a reasonable height. hGH is injected into the blood stream to replace the missing growth hormones. However, taking extra growth hormones doesn’t mean you will get extra height. Growth hormones are a part of a complex chain of chemicals in your body. Growth hormones causes growth, but other chemicals limit the speed of growth and the amount of growth — many of these we haven’t yet figured out.
Only a doctor can proscribe hGH — it is a controlled substance. One of the concerns is that since growth hormone triggers growth and cancer is uncontrolled growth, that having too much growth hormone might trigger or encourage a cancerous growth. The current rules are that hGH should only be used for people lacking growth hormone or people with a wasting disease, such as AIDS. Illegal use of hGH comes with very heavy fines and jail time.
You will find places advertising hGH in an oral form. These are scams. hGH is destroyed in your digestive system, so it never enters your blood stream. Doctors who give hGH shoots generally charge $500 to $1,000 per month for the shoots, so it is not a cheap therapy.
For just about every person, there will always be someone shorter and someone taller. It is not worth being concerned about your height. You are as you were made to be, so enjoy life as God gave it to you. “And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” (Luke 12:25).