Childhood migraines

My mum had migraines when I was young, and I remember those episodes being marked by her retreating to a dark room, and us tiptoeing around her, looking worried as she puked.

I had never heard of migraines in children, until I had Christian. Since Christian was about 2 years old, he would have occasional episodes of crying, sleepiness, followed by vomiting. He would bounce back up, perfectly fine and dandy after a 2 hour nap.

We used to think that it was indigestion, but when P witnessed Christian’s behaviour, he recalled that he was exactly like this when he was young. P didn’t know it then, but he grew up realising that he suffered from migraines as a child.

Sigh. I was a little sceptical, but given that P described himself as having the exact symptoms, I resigned myself to the fact that our poor son takes after his father in this aspect.

A little research on the internet also suggests that he could be suffering from abdominal migraine -

“Abdominal migraine. This presents typically as recurrent bouts of generalised abdominal pain associated with nausea and vomiting but no headache, followed by sleep and recovery. Typical migraines may occur separately.”

However, he had another episode last evening after Berries class, and when I asked him which part of his body hurt, he said “the brain”. =S

We used to think that aged cheese and dairy might be the triggers, but he had none of those yesterday. Sigh. This list of triggers and predisposing factors is long, but we have no choice but to be more careful in avoiding them -

• Identification of triggers and predisposing factors, often with a trigger/headache diary. This may be important in the development of a behavioural strategy. Dietary sensitivities affect only about 20% of migraine sufferers. In children, the following triggers have been identified as important: sleep, stress, dehydration/warm weather, missed meals, video games. Stress management has been shown to improve severity and frequency of headache.

• Behavioural management strategy. This should emphasise routine around sleeping, eating and avoiding an overloaded routine to help prevent migraine, as well as strategies for dealing with an attack (lie in a cool, dark, quiet room and encourage sleep with pharmacological or non-pharmacological support).

Source: http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Migraine-in-Children.htm

Praying it’ll go away as he grows up, as it does for many young sufferers of migraines.