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Migraines in Children
Migraine is not the exclusive dominion of adults since children have been known to suffer from it as well. Statistics indicate the around twenty percent of migraine sufferers had their first attack before reaching the age of five and that five to ten percent of school-age children in the US experience migraine headaches.
Migraines in children exhibit somewhat similar symptoms to those that occur in adults. These are headaches, nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, sound and smell, abdominal cramps and the need to sleep. Headaches in children are of a much shorter duration than adults, lasting from 30 minutes up to 48 hours, but only 4 hours in most cases. Child migraine sufferers are usually pale and have dark circles under their eyes.
Foods comprise most of the triggers of migraines in children. The most common are chocolate, cheese, nuts, shellfish, Chinese food and sugar. Certain findings of a study indicated that ninety-three percent of migraineurs developed headaches after eating ice cream.
Since most triggers are found in food that children love, their diets must be strictly supervised if pain is to be avoided. Awareness of the exact trigger will help the sufferer to stay healthy in spite of his condition.
Once a parent observes that the child has severe headaches, he must be taken to the doctor right away. The headaches may not be migraine and could be due to tension or sinusitis. The most important thing is find out that the pain is not caused by any life-threatening condition and if it is, then treatment can be administered immediately.
Diagnosing migraines in children is more complex than adults, especially when there is no particular test to clearly establish if a person has it or not. The physician has to look at several angles such as the medical history, laboratory tests, allergies and medications being taken.
A child will also need guidance from the physician to accurately describe the pain that he feels in order to arrive at an accurate diagnosis. Questions that need to be asked involve the type of pain, the location of the headache, when it happened, times when he felt he wanted to sleep and whether or not he was sensitive to light or sound.
A child may also find it difficult to describe an aura if he suffers from classic migraine. To resolve this, some doctors use picture cards that display typical visual auras to aid in the diagnosis.
Once a child is confirmed to have migraine, the parents and doctor should spend time discussing how to manage the disease. Issues like avoiding triggers, dealing with pain, what drugs are to be used and how to administer them. A change in the lifestyle of the child will have an impact on the family as well, and this should also be considered. There might be a need to talk about the disease with other members of the family.
Migraines in children need not hamper their development. With the support of the physicians and families, they will still be assured of growing up to be healthy adults.
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