I hope some parents still find this resource.
When we lived in Canada my son developed migraines at the age of 4, our GP sent us to a Neurologist for all the tests (you could get that appt then and not have to wait months).
Patrick’s headaches were diagnosed, the MD told me prescriptions are rarely applicable for active children because by the time they acknowledge the onset signals and/or the pain it’s too late ie. they throw it up and then the pain is usually gone.
And if we start him on that route he might be taking them for a long time.
So he got us into a biofeedback program at the neuro dept he headed at our university.
Pat had to learn to be aware of his body’s signals, etc. Yes it was stressful for him all of us, but it started to work.
Then we moved to Atlanta and we couldn’t find a similar program anywhere. So Pat started taking Sumatriptan, then Relpax and finally grew out of them by the time he was 17.
Find a program of biofeedback.
My son is 10 and started getting chronic migraines a year ago.. We are in the process of getting him tested for nutrient deficiency but we have had good success managing his pain with EEVE pain relief. He is able to take it to school and usually is enough to ward the headache off when he drinks a glass of water at the same time.
Really hoping we can manage this with diet and lifestyle.
Migraines run in our family. My mother, me, and two of my daughters. However, one of my daughters suffered daily, not occasionally, and it was different than the rest of us. I took her to so many doctors from high school onwards, and none of their prescriptions or "solutions" eased the frequency or intensity. When she was entering law school at age 24, a friend of ours who happened to be a doctor, had a hunch about the symptoms that plagued my daughter. He drew blood, and looked for an autoimmune illness. There it was: she was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, and one of its defining symptoms is daily, debilitating migraines. She was put on Lupus drugs, that focus on controlling the Lupus, but unfortunately the only thing that has helped the migraines is the botox injections in her scalp. They last about 2 months, and she gets them every 3 months. Insurance usually doesn't cover the fee for the injections and much of the neurologist's fee, but we have no other choice. Don't expect pediatricians or most doctors to think outside of the box when it comes to diagnosing autoimmune diseases. Look at the extended family history on both sides, and you might find that there is most likely a genetic link. Doctors usually ask what you inherit from parents and grandparents, but they rarely ask about all those distant relatives who are part of the DNA in each of us.
2
My 12yr old son had daily headaches. Started out 1x/wk, then 4-5days per week for several months (6months plus)
Specialist diagnosed him with "cronic daily headaches" (talk about restating the obvious).
No treatment recommended... as we passed on anti-depressants.. and he had to wait till 14yrs old to get Botox injections in back of his neck (not kidding).
My wife's naturopathic doc ran blood tests.
Turns out, my soccer playing (5 days per week), pasta loving (preferred Nonna's pasta to any meat) kid was amino acid deficient - yup, protein!
Regular meat dinners, and amino supplements took care of problem in 2weeks.
Called specialists to inform her of solution - no interest or curiosity.
Point being - for young kids, please consider diet and lifestyle, and check nutrient levels. Perhaps not the solution... but at least you can check it off before moving to more serious issues.
For all suffering from migranes - i wish you well.
5
@Rafael This is very helpful. My son is going for blood tests next week to test for the same. Thanks for sharing :)
@Rafael every time I get a migraine, eating meat helps it go away. I wonder how common this is.
@Rafael Still looking for a good naturopath. Thanks for sharing!
I was among those teens whose parents dismissed my complaints about my terrible headaches and nausea, thinking I was just being dramatic. My pediatrician told me I was just congested. I was finally taken seriously by a doctor when I was in college, but my migraines did not improve until I was into my 20s and started eating properly, not skipping meals, not drinking sugary drinks, and was under less stress than in HS and college. (Being an adult has been less stressful for me than being a teen.) When I do get an attack, I find that ice on the back of my neck is a HUGE help. I always thought ice should be applied to the area of pain until a friend educated me.
4
This article neglects to mention that the foods listed all either contain histamines or are histamine liberators. Histamine intolerance has been linked to migraines as well as many other symptoms.
The problem is often not a specific food, but rather the accumulation of the histamines and the body’s inability to produce the enzyme, DAO, needed to break them down. So a person with histamine intolerance might not react to a specific food such as chocolate or red wine if he or she hasn’t had a lot of other high-histamine foods in the past couple of days. However, if that glass of wine or chocolate bar was preceded by other high histamine foods such as processed meats, aged cheeses, soy sauce, etc., it can cause a migraine.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much awareness about histamine intolerance among doctors or the general public in the US. In Europe, one can buy the enzyme (DAOSin) in tablet form and take it before consuming high-histamine foods.
5
Only people who suffer from migraines can understand what a debilitating and horrible disease a migraine headache is. I feel very cheated, my migraines started at puberty and robbed me of enjoying a normal life. All the important events I missed, all the days , nights and weeks I spent in a dark room, all the times I ended up in emergency rooms, waiting to be put out of my misery and started all over again, pushed me to the brink of suicide more than once. Of all of my brothers and sisters, I was the lucky one to inherit migraines from my mother. She suffered mercilessly from migraines all her life. I tried everything, from every medicine that came on the market, therapy, biofeedback, acupuncture, herbal therapy, diet, and god knows what else, and continued to suffer from them all my life.
Parents, teachers, doctors and other caregivers must be educated about childhood migraines. The worst thing you can do is to dismiss their pain and suffering. It is amazing that medical advances has been made in so many areas, but migraines.
7
@BB
My son suffers from cluster headaches. He is in a lot of pain. He has found that if he uses oxygen at 10 liters per minute for about 10 minutes the migraines disappear. I hope this helps.
A lot of kids get migraines because they are dealing with stress. My parents got snookered by alternative healers for my sister's childhood migraines after the Cleveland Clinic couldn't find an effective treatment. They tried nutritional "hair analysis," supplements, dietary changes, and other things.
You know what ended my sister's migraines? My parents' divorce.
6
@Tracy This made me very sad for your sister. And me. I had a sad and lonely childhood, beset by migraines. Migraine as a response to the stress I felt as a child has shaped my whole life, but I am happy to say at least that I didn't get many migraines after I left home either.
A family member has a mast cell disease and suffered from terrible headaches. The first treatment that worked was Singulair (anti-leukotriene). Once he started on a mast cell stabilizer, Xolair, the headaches stopped, but Xolair is a very expensive monthly shot. Singulair doesn't have a lot side effects and might be worth a try if you have allergies and bad headaches.
3
Over the years I’ve identified my triggers.
I stay away from: citrus fruit and drinks; anything with food dye which includes yellow cheese (I can eat white but not yellow cheddar) and often smoked salmon or salmon fillets; and red wine. Any two of those items within a 24-hour period will bring on a migraine.
The article states that these foods are not proven to cause migraine. I can tell you that I’ve had lots of proof in my life.
6
The conclusion that migraines are stress related and that relief is strongly susceptible to suggestion, is not one that patients, their families, or many doctors will want to hear. But it may explain why several very different kinds of drug are equally effective. Still, this conclusion puts patients and physicians in the dangerous position of blaming the victim. Migraines are real and debilitating. Better research will eventually explain the mechanisms and causes that lead to them, as it has for ulcers and other diseases that were thought to be a result of patient psychology.
9
HI- Sugar, corn , dairy and gluten are major triggers for people with migraines. I have had huge success with clients who have removed these trigger and inflammatory foods with amazing success. In conjunction, with high quality fats and while foods this can be a game changer for many suffering from migraines..
3
My husband has suffered from migraines since he was a child. He got one 1-2 per week. He was tired of the meds. We looked into natural alternatives with a naturopath. He is taking magnesium and vitamin b2 this regimen has decreased the number and severity of migraines.
4
I had the full thing, vomiting to the point of fainting, seeing lights, sensitivity to light etc from early childhood. My father, also a migraine sufferer, served in the Australian army during the second world war, and spent time overseas. During those years my migraines increased in frequency and intensity. The treatment was "a good clean out" with castor oil. Even now (I'm 85) the smell of castor oil makes me feel I'll. I missed Christmas, parties, virtually any exciting event because of migraines. And then in my fifties they diminished and finally disappeared. I haven't had one for years.
Anne Jolly
Tasmania Australia
8
Naturally-- as the NYTimes is "Main Stream Media-- there is not one single word from a professional medical herbalist, or a Naturopathic Doctor; nor is there any reference to any scientific study about non-prescription treatments. "Money rules the world" ( I said that ), and the prejudicial mindset that was built by Big Med, Big Pharma, and MSM continues to obliterate other ( or, preferably, collaborative ) treatment options.
4
The main medications/supplements mentioned in this article - topamax, amitryptiline, magnesium, and riboflavin - are either generic prescriptions or over the counter supplements. This article has nothing to do with big pharma.
5
@stephan brown
American consumers need to stop buying into a false David and Goliath narrative about a $30+ billion "alternative' healthcare industry. Those corporations bank on the public's low science literacy to sell products and treatments with either unproven or disproven claims. Many other countries require rigorous testing and labeling, but in the US the industry has successfully fought it. Even the ingredients are poorly labeled. Our candy has more accurate labeling.
Sure, there are websites and publications that cite research on "alternative" treatments, but it's rare that it's peer-reviewed. Without that level of scrutiny, those studies are not to be trusted.
3
@stephan brown
I think she did suggest vitamin B2 and or magnesium; which are available without prescriptions.
1
It is good to see new treatments for children with migraines. I would also love to see articles about kids suffering from New Daily Persistent Headache. My daughter has had a constant, debilitating headache since 7th grade. It just wears you down. When it spikes it is treated like a migraine, but that just bring it down to barely functional. It would be great to see articles addressing treatments for that group as well.
5
@Leslie Alfieri, Years ago when I was in high school I would get headaches every weekday afternoon but not on weekends. I was a very good student withiut working very hard at it and liked school so it wasn't stress. After HS no more headaches. Later on when the need to stay hydrated was being more widely discussed I realiized that I was mostt likely dehydrated on those afternoons because I was restricting my fluid intake so I would not have an urge to urinate during class or our very short between class breaks.
I realize this is not a likely cause of your daughters headaches, but if it were to be the cause it would be relatively easily remedied.
1
As a 60 year old postmenopausal woman who suffers chronic debilitating headaches, I wonder why this article pertains to migraines in children, since it seems that this information would be applicable to adults as well.
6
I’ll bet 95% of people don’t really understand what a migraine is. Some of the commentators below don’t (a wet towel will not help a migraine). I hear so many people talk about having “migraines” when they really mean headaches.
I migraine is a tsunami. You cannot imagine it unless you have had it, and it is so painful and debilitating, and when it happens to children, it is the worst. My 15 year old had them for a year, and we went to children’s hospital and the doctor diagnosed her with Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome and put her on medicine and dietary restrictions. It turned out the trigger was most likely the birth control pills she was on to treat her acne. I’ve had 2 migraines in my life, the second one so bad I wanted to call 911 but couldn’t get my phone to work.
10
“… Over 15 days per month…“ My deepest sympathies go out to you you have these debilitating headaches; I can barely stand a half hour headache if I have one in the last 20 years
3
To people who don’t understand how bad migraine can be:
I just had a baby a few months ago. 30 hour labor; epidural only after 12 hours; vomiting throughout. It was horrible—and yet still less uncomfortable than a migraine. I’d choose childbirth over a migraine, tbh.
14
So migraine is a "disease" that you can treat with a placebo, a non-medication fake?!
@LEFisher If that’s what you’ve taken away from this article then you’ve never had chronic migraines. I’m in my 60’s and have had migraines since I was prepubescent. I have never been able to find an adequate treatment for them and have tried everything in this article. They have ruined my life. They are nothing to joke about. And the worst thing is that you look perfectly healthy so no one thinks you’re sick or disabled. No one understands or cares. Not really. Chronic headaches steal millions or actually billions from our economy not to mention what actual individuals lose. This is not the time for sarcasm.
Parents and doctors (especially doctors) should cast a wide net for causes: my daughter had serious, terrible migraines for several years, and they turned out to be related to the onset of Type 1 Diabetes. A friend of mine had the same signal for the same reason at the same age, 12. In both cases, the migraines stopped when the Diabetes manifested entirely.
* Watch out for this sign.* It's a serious.
7
I have had migraines since I was a young child, age 7 and before. They were undiagnosed until many years later, but I always self medicated with 2 aspirin (which was still given to children then) and very strong coffee. Both aspirin and caffeine are absorbed immediately through the stomach wall, and it would work fast. When I first became a nurse, caffeine was occasionally given IV for bad migraines, some times with ergotamine. The development of Imitrex was a godsend. By the time it came out, aspirin and caffeine no longer worked, so was happy to have a solution. The migraines drastically increased around menopause, but that was solved by taking birth control pills without the usual break, suppressing my periods. It seems that caffeine for children would be worth a try.
6
I was discussing the relative cost of eyeglasses in different parts of the world with a young Swiss man recently and he told me his migraines stopped when he got new glasses with the filter that's now being offered for the light from screens? Don't recall exactly but it filters out blue light? Seems like a variety of things can trigger migraines, depending on the person and his/her sensitivities.
4
Non celiac gluten intolerance is the primary trigger for my migraines. Wheat does horrifying things to me. Chocolate, cheese, processed meat... not so much.
Wheat could be the same trigger for the people who complain that "alcohol" triggers them. A whole lot of alcohol is made from wheat.
3
@Dejah also alcohol consumption (or over consumption) often leads to dehydration, which is a common trigger. I've found I don't have a problem with alcohol per se, but if I drink without having sufficient water? Voila migraine
For the last 30 years, alcohol has always been the trigger, even fermented fruit juice could cause a migraine that always has the same exact routine. If I drank any amount of alcohol, even a quarter cup, I would wake up the next morning very early with a pounding sinus headache, start vomiting, and could only find relief from the pain and dizziness from vomiting. For 6-8 hours, I would dry heave, have cold hands, a white face, then it would start to dissipate. Always, exactly the same response. I only share this because, I occasionally run into people with the same exact set of symptoms but who do not believe they are having a migraine. I wish I would have understood much sooner.
7
When I was two I told my mother I had a "stummy-ache in my head" and had discovered cold cloths and dark rooms by age 5. They didn't stop till menopause.
But before age two, I cried a lot, and they called it colic. Could there be a connection? Maybe (some) colic is actually a migraine, but the patient is a baby, and you don't know about the headache and other symptoms.
4
@Amy
Colic is usually lactose intolerance, including lactose coming through the breastmilk to the baby. It causes horrifying stomach aches in nursing babies. The cure for most babies is for the mother to stop drinking cow's milk and eating cheese. This is why they put babies with colic on soy formula... bc most mothers won't stop drinking milk and eating cheese.
If your migraines stopped with menopause, they were probably estrogen linked. Oddly, estrogen is *also* linked to... you guessed it. Cow's milk.
1
@Dejah My mom used formula, it was 1961 so I'm guessing it was made from cow's milk. But I was never lactose intolerant as a child or adult.
1
Amy, my daughter suffered from cyclical vomiting syndrome and cracking headaches that started at age 1. Now 17, her conditon is a full-on disability.
Children with migraines should be taken to a pediatric neurologist who specializes in migraines. Our curent doctor has been able to mitigate the disease meaning that she can mainly get around, but there are days when she is knocked off her feet.
I am sorry about what happened to you. Often adults still don't beleive it can happen, or recognize migraines in young children,. She didn't speak until she was 2, but on the way back from Children's hospital she screamed "My head! My head!" and I finally put it together.
My advice to parents.Believe your children. It's a neurological problem: some kids just have more debilitating conditions, others kids have migraines that are more easily managed. If your child has chronic migraines get a 504 and if necessary... get a lawyer. My experience with public school teachers in Californai has been mainly okay, but some have been awful and will not accommodate her or don't underatand the necessary accommodations.
3
Migraine is not a headache. It is a disease of the nerves in the body. The nervous system. Headache is one of many symptoms migraine produces. Indeed, most who suffer from migraine, 1 in 7 humans, have no headache but have other things like nausea, vertigo, balance issues, digestion problems, sensitivity to sound, tinnitus, perhaps some head pressure when very bad, tingling in the extremities, urinary tract problems, sinus problems, the list goes on.
Many men go undiagnosed with migraine in large part because of the misnomer (often reinforced by endless ads for OTC migraine) that it is just a headache. Many more are misdiagnosed.
It is critical that you see a “migraine specialist” neurologist and not just any neurologist or ENT for up to date treatment options.
Migraine specialist are rare and in demand. The US needs many more and better funding for migraine research and cures.
16
Severe chronic migraine disease was experienced by my mother-in-law (deceased over a decade now) and is experienced by my husband, sister-in-law, and my two daughters. Is any work being done to determine which genes cause the condition in hopes of genetics-based treatments?
My mother-in-law died of Parkinson's disease. My youngest daughter has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Is there a proven link between the migraine condition and the development of neurodegenerative diseases?
My husband's migraines come with symptoms which mirror strokes: slurred speech, unilateral limb weakness, etc. He has in the past had extensive workups for cerebral vascular events which were negative. But it is worrisome to have to witness a 62-year-old man with those symptoms and resist the urge to take him to the ER.
4
Warning, folks - Imitrex (sumatriptan) can very easily cause a cycle of worsening migraines that is very hard to break out of. I started getting migraines around puberty but wasn't diagnosed until age 22. Then I was put on Imitrex. It seemed like a miracle at first - I took it and my headache just went away! But then I started getting migraines three times a week, and they were much more painful than they had been before. I suspected Imitrex had worsened them, but every time I tried to just tough my way through a headache without Imitrex, I ended up giving in because the pain was terrifyingly bad.
This year (age 35), I started going to a headache specialist, and she told me that I was right, Imitrex was causing a rebound cycle, and she sees this all the time. They put me on prednisone to suppress the headaches for a month or more so I didn't have to take the Imitrex, and put me on some supplements that are supposed to help prevent migraine, and I'm now down from two or three headaches a week to two or three a month.
4
@Katy I've never heard of this; I've had a prescription for Imitrex for at least a decade and it's been fantastic. Have scientists figured out what it is about the drug that causes the rebound cycle?
2
I take fioricet (butalbital) for severe headaches, but for the same reason (warnings about rebound headaches with this medication) I take it as seldom as possible and only when I am desperate and just cannot tolerate the pain any longer.
2
@Kris I'm not a doctor so I could be getting this wrong, but as I understand it, it increases your levels of a peptide called CGRP, which makes your brain oversensitized and ready to react to any stimulus by getting a migraine.
My son, who is 13 now, started experiencing occasional migraines at around 3 years old, then at around 6, they became more frequent and as he entered pre-puberty, they were happening every 4-5 days. They were debilitating and he missed a lot of school. Each episode lasted about 12-18 hours. I have a history of migraines in my family.
We finally saw a pediatric neurologist at Seattle Children’s who put him on a lifestyle protocol of 64 ounces of water daily, 200 mg of B2 before bedtime and encouraged him to keep a very steady routine of sleep. On top of that, he sticks to a diet without gluten, dairy, soy and no caffeine.
Happy to say his migraine episodes have decreased dramatically to maybe one or two every month and are significantly milder and they go away with sleep.
5
My son was diagnosed with debilitating migraines in middle school. His condition came on quickly and prompted doctors to look for some cause like tumors. After months of doctor and hospital visits the results were inconclusive and we were told it was migraines with an unknown source. As a parent I stressed over this and continued to look for why these came on so suddenly. I looked for environmental causes in the house when it occurred to me that these started at the same time that we bought a new washer and dryer. The significance was that we started using fabric softener when his migraines started. We immediately changed to scent/dye free detergents and no fabric softener. After re washing everything in the house my sons migraines went away and have never returned. He is 29 now. I've tried sharing this with doctor specialist, but have never got a positive response. If it happens to help one person this will be worth the effort.
24
I suffer from chronic migraine and I believe you. If I get anywhere near fabric softener— especially the sheets— I immediately become ill with severe symptoms. I can hardly walk down that aisle in the grocery store.
8
@Scott
Wow that is hugely interesting to me! I hadn't used fabric softener in years due to atopic dermatitis, and hadn't had but a very occasional ocular migraine in that time. In the past few mos I started using an allergen- free dryer sheet and haven't had any itching. But there have been numerous ocular and vertiginous migraines. I'll stop using the dryer sheets and make sure my daily outfits have been re-washed from now on. Fingers crossed, thanks!
5
"One often overlooked contributor to attacks of migraine is stress. Dr. Szperka told me, “Stress is a huge factor in migraine. Kids have told us, ‘If I’m worried about something, that’s when I have my headache.’ Kids today are under so much pressure to do well in school and in sports if they want to get into a good college. They push themselves and suffer. Sometimes the best suggestion to them is to ease up academically.”
Statements like the doctor's, here, contribute to the prevailing forms of stigma regarding migraine and chronic migraine sufferers. A reader might infer from the above paragraph that stress causes migraine. Stress can augment or trigger migraine but stress no more "causes" migraine than strobe lights cause epileptic seizures. Migraine is a brain disorder that can be triggered by numerous environmental factors, including shifts in the weather.
12
I have used a wash cloth or hand towel moist with water and folded, microwaved, and placed inside of a ziplock baggie or two, and draped over my throbbing head. The warmth combined with the weight of the baggie, seems to help drown out the pain and helps me fall into sleep. Sometimes a bit of lavender oil under my nose also serves as a distraction to the pain.
4
How about starting with checking for airway issue or TMD ??? The stomatognatgic system ( CNS, muscle , teeth, joints , cervical/neck ) play a huge roll ... check the child’s cranio- cervical development ( bad bite) and many answers will come to play. GNeuromuscular Dentistry.
2
I began having migraines at age 10. I’d go to bed as soon as I got home from school. My parents didn’t pay any attention to them. I just had to gut it out. At 68, I’m post menopausal and a widow. I am stress free and mostly headache free. Red wine seems to be a trigger so for the occasional migraine an Imitrex takes it right out. Migraines are miserable and sufferers have my unending sympathy.
7
I have suffered from debilitating migraines for 32 years. I was a patient of Dr. Kudrow in Encino, CA for quite a few years. It was his father, the first Dr. Kudrow, who discovered “rebound headaches”, that can be separate and part of the migraine symptoms. Anyway, he got me into a 2 or 3 FDA trials for new migraine drugs and really helped get me onto a proper pharmaceutical treatment regimen. As I aged and post-partum, my migraines were even worse. I missed so many big events and life moments because I was in a dark, silent room praying for things to end.
I knew I had to take drastic measures after, what was supposed to be a fun time with my son, almost became deadly. I ran out of meds and had to drive home after a weekend of camping. But on S101, north of San Francisco, the pain overtook me and I passed out while behind the wheel of my minivan. I came to when I heard my son screaming and I saw the steam rising from the engine of my car. I caused a 3-car pileup. It was awful.
My ObGyn, my neurologist and primary care doc all supported me, in my quest for a hysterectomy. It was the best decision I ever made. I still get migraines but they no longer rule my life. I still take 200 mg daily of Topamax - at least I’m down from 400 mg/day!!
However, I contend with the major guilt of seeing my children struggle with migraines. My son started experiencing them at age 6 and my daughter at age 11.
6
@Amy M. Hello from a fellow migraneur. That must have been terrifying! I am so glad you and all involved in the accident are ok. I haven't read the other comments, but to both adults and kids who suffer over 15 days of migraines per month, a trial course of Botox and/or the newer injectable Imegen (sp?) are what has saved me. My son was 5 when his forst abdominal migraines hit, and he had them for years before we really understood thats what was going on. By attending a childrens hospital migraine clinic, he qualified for Botox as well. And I know of at lest one other teenager who does both Botox and the Imegen injections. I am somewhat surprised that the author refers mainly to older drugs like amitriptyline and the Topomax (though glad you found relief from the latter!), without mentioning these newer therapies that might avoid the side effects of the medications the suthor points to.
5
@Kari part of the issue with botox is that some insurance companies (mine, I know) won't cover it unless you've tried several of the traditional preventatives first (I tried it after amitriptyline, topomax and propranalol). For me botox was not a success but fortunately the new injectables (Emgality in my case) have been a godsend. And no real side effects!!
1
As a child I used to help alleviate my mom’s migraines and as an adult I suffered from and conquered my own perimenopausal migraine cycles. As a mind-body headache specialist for fifty years, I've helped adults, teens, and kids with their headaches and migraines and held programs at medical centers, universities, corporations, and conferences.
Although there are common threads, each person is an individual with unique, often multiple, factors that combine to create their particular migraine stew. Everything counts, from diet (both what and when you eat and drink), to stress (at home, work, school, with peers, in relationships), to posture, bodily tension, weather, environment, thoughts, feelings, mood, and on and on. By detecting triggers and making changes on all fronts, you get a different result.
Family support of kids and teens with headache and migraine is so important — such as everyone adopting a healthy diet and good postural habits, reducing stress and bodily tension, promoting calming practices, getting exercise, and creating an emotionally safe space.
My book, The Headache Healer's Handbook, teaches how. (Foreword by Alexander Mauskop, MD; New World Library, 2018).
I hope this is helpful.
3
Both of my daughters developed occasional migraines when they began to hit puberty at about age 10. Our doctor suggested a combination of CoQ10 (100 mg), B-2 (100 mg) and magnesium (400 mg) daily. Within a couple weeks of beginning this regimen, the headaches were gone. These supplements do not cause any side effects and as far as I could determine from research, they seem very safe in kids. I would suggest trying this combination before resorting to prescription drugs.
8
@Amy,
That's interesting. Actually my daughter started getting ocular migraines about that time too an with increasing frequency - looking at bright lights seemed to trigger them. I started giving her B-Complex every day. A year later, I asked her how about her ocular migraines, she said she didn't have them anymore. The only thing that changed for her was religiously receiving the B-Complex vitamin.
Her primary didn't know what to do.
8
@Good idea
what brand did you use? i notice that most brands have very uneven levels of b vitamins - some very high, others not. did yours?
1
Thank you, Ms. Brody, for this article. However, you need to do further research to make this article fully accurate. For instance, Elavil, while effective for many, can also cause significant weight gain, a problem that already exists in both adults and children.
Also, you fail to mention that until recently all prophylactic drugs given for chronic migraines have been off-label drugs. For instance, Elavil is an old line anti-depressant.
Why is that failure important? Because now, for the first time in the history of migraine treatment, drugs have been developed SPECIFICALLY for chronic migraines. One such drug is Aimovig, taken once a month. For me, and others, these drugs are game changers. Aimovig, for me, has been a miracle drug. For you to not mention them shows an unfortunate lack of research that does not adequately inform the reader of the absolute best options available for chronic migraine sufferers.
17
@Joe Mallon It is totally accepted, perfectly legal, and good medical practice for doctors to prescribe off-label drugs. Especially in the case of migraines, on-label drugs that target migraines specifically just don't work for lots of people. Whether a drug is prescribed on-label or off-label is irrelevant. What matters is whether it works for a given patient. In many cases, an off-label drug is in fact "the best option."
3
@Joe Mallon Amen. Life changing. Also, Ajovy is amazing.
1
@Joe Mallon Jane Brody is using the American Headache Society guidelines. The new CGRP meds you mention are not recommended for children, nor are they first-line medications. Also, there have been prophylactic drugs designed specifically for migraine previously, eg methysergide (no longer available).
Yes, cgrp drugs are a new, exciting development in headache medicine, but Ms. Brody has done her research.
9
My daughter is a migraine suffer and I look at this advice as a joke. We dealt with her migraines for years. By junior year she had them every 3-5 days and couldn't do anything but sleep when she had them. Take a pain reliever, drink more water, and get enough sleep was not cutting it. We began homeschooling to get her through high school. You know what has helped? She turned 18 and we went to an adult (not pediatric) neurologist. She has been on Emgality shots for 6 months now and the results are life changing!!!
9
@Christine
Emgality is working extremely well for me as well. I'm 45 and have not been happy with any other migraine medications - so many side effects, and I've tried many. Emgality has no noticeable side effects so far. Very grateful that there are now these migraine-specific injectables.
4
I suffered from “sick headaches” inherited from my father, from age ten. It wasn’t until I went to law school and worked as a TA that I began experiencing classical migraines with aura. Sometimes I would get the visual aura, without the pain. The whole center of my visual field would consist of scintillating scotomas. Interestingly, my migraines changed when I became a lawyer. I would have been fired if I spent days each month away from work. I had visual aura all week, but pain migraines only on the weekend.
Imitrex was a miracle drug. Jane is incorrect in saying that there were no drugs for migraine before I tired. One was Cafergot, a combination of caffeine and ergot. It made you feel like you had drunk 20 cups of coffee. It did nothing.
Sleep was the only thing that stopped the pain. I used to hypnotize myself to sleep.
Triggers were bright lights, especially flashing, stress and too much sleep. However, the worst migraine I ever had was the side effect of taking an antibiotic prescribed by my periodontist. My stomach didn’t like this drug and I projectile vomited it, precipitating the onset of terrible pain, throbbing to time with my pulse.
I gradually outgrew migraines in menopause. At seventy, I haven’t had a migraine for years.
3
@Bathsheba Robie I disagree regarding cafergot. It helped some people (everyone's migraines are different) including my mother.
For me however, if it "did nothing" it would have been a vast improvement. I have never been that nauseous in my LIFE. When I was asked if I was feeling better, I responded with honesty "I don't know. I'm so nauseous I can't feel my head!"
1
I had migraines weekly and biweekly as a kid, tapering off into my 20’s. Headache, nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light and heat and noise - but strangely, no auras. My brother and mother also had attacks. Horrible horrible feeling. No medications worked. Thank goodness for sufferers today!
3
Adding my experience: my migraines began when I was a teenager and a chronic headache started in my early adulthood. My mother also had migraines, but less often than me. After about ten years of trying different medications to reduce the frequency of the migraine episodes I have landed on a regime that works: a high dose of amitriptyline at night and fairly high dose propranolol morning and night. The particular dosages were really important. When I do get a migraine episode, I have the anti nausea drug ondansetron to take alongside either oral Relpax, or if I’m vomiting, injectable Imigran. Getting to sleep is often the priority during an episode. For me it would only be once or twice a year that I gave a migraine that lasts over days and doesn’t calm down after being asleep. My advice for anyone who is not adequately managing chronic migraine is to be relentless in finding a doctor (neurologist or GP) that will commit to helping you. It might take six months or a whole year, but there are a lot of medication options and it takes time and effort to figure out which will work for you. If you’re a teenager or the parent of a teenager who is getting terrible migraine episodes, take sleep seriously and treat it like you would an oral medicine. Teenagers are brats but sleep is so vital, don’t turn it into a moral issue, you will find plenty of other reasons to punish your kids.
2
@Nicholas - Chronic headaches were often misdiagnosed and were really rebound headaches. Look them up.
1
i am 63 years old. I have had headaches since i was a child. My mother took me to various doctors. She was told “it’s tension,” “she’s nervous,” “she’s faking it to get out of school.” As an adult, I was finally diagnosed with migraines. Thank goodness children’s headaches are getting attention. While my mother always tried to help me with my headaches, she would be relieved to know my headaches weren’t anyone’s fault and that there are now medications that could have helped me.
7
Magnesium supplementation actually has a good scientific basis rather than just being a placebo - up to half of migraine sufferers are deficient.
Dr. Andrew Hershey's large study showed that one third of children with migraines are deficient in CoQ10, so that would be my second supplement to try alone or in combination with magnesium.
Riboflavin and melatonin have less scientific evidence, but are very benign and can be tried if magnesium and CoQ10 are ineffective.
Another strategy is to measure magnesium and CoQ10 levels in the blood, but the tests are expensive and not entirely accurate.
Alexander Mauskop, MD
New York Headache Center
28
I've had migraines since approximately the age of four; that is to say, as long as I can remember. I unfortunately inherited them from my father, a fellow migraineur. The awful thing was, Mom, who rarely ever had a headache, insisted we were just malingering. She even thought bought into the whole Vitamin C fervor and dosed us, claiming it would cure our "sinus headaches".
When I was about twelve, an optometrist diagnosed me with juvenile migraine, but didn't seem overly concerned about the fact. Mind you, I'd been having three or four headaches a week since kindergarten. This was the mid-seventies-- maybe the medical field had no effective treatment for those juvenile migraines?
Anyhow, suffered for years until I was in my late thirties, when I finally found a female neurologist who took me seriously and prescribed an effective treatment protocol. Along the way, I developed kidney damage from one doctor who kept me on NSAIDs too long, a doctor who thought I just wanted narcotics (I hate taking them), and developed an allergy to triptans. Fall and spring are my worst seasons, and bananas are my only known food trigger.
There's no definitive answer as to what causes migraines. Everyone's different. Find out what works for YOU.
11
My poor daughter, offspring of two migraine sufferers, suffered from undiagnosed abdominal migraine that presented as stomach pain, with occasional cyclical vomiting. I still remember sitting in the school nurse's and principal offices at her schools, multiple times, being told that she needed to suck it up. School staff members need education about migraine.
18
@SusanJR I didn't know about abdominal headaches until reading your comment, and it explains a lot about what my daughter tried to explain to us when she was little. Thank you.
I am a scientist and also a migraine sufferer from a young age--I started when I was about 10 years old. The outcome of my migraine research yielded amazing findings: the cause of migraine is complex but the prevention is quite simple.
I wrote a book about it "Fighting The Migraine Epidemic: Complete Guide: How to Treat & Prevent Migraines Without Medicines" (in it's second edition by now) that is sold all over but here is the link to amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Migraine-Epidemic-Migraines-Medicines-ebook/dp/B076BZG2V3/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1553898414&sr=8-1-fkmrnull and have started up a couple of migraine groups on Facebook as well. Here is the migraine group we start everyone at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MigraineSufferers/
There are dozens of children in the group--represented by their parents, of course--from ages 2-18. All become migraine free without the use of any medicines by using the protocol, which in its basic form is a nutritional change to a low carbs, or a very low carbs, or a carbs-free diet and increased dietary salt.
The biggest victory was a 16-year old child who was home-schooled while on Topamax & a bag full of other drugs. She graduated high school with honors on my protocol, received her BA, & is now workign on her master's degree--pain and medicine free.
I recommend to all parent to give the Stanton Migraine Protocol a chance. Safe & effective--no drugs & free.
14
@Angela A Stanton, Ph.D. I’m so glad I found your Stanton Protocol. I’m learning more everyday on how to prevent the every other day migraines i was hampered by.
Who would have ever thought salt , dairy,fat,dairy & meat would make such a difference?
I’m forever grateful.
Your FB support page is extremely helpful. The admins are supportive and knowledgeable.
3
Geez, I hope no one's prescribing the two drugs in the CHAMP group. It's hard to tell from the article.
I followed the link, and the placebo group actually did BETTER than the drug groups. "The trial was concluded early for futility after a planned interim analysis. There were no significant between-group differences in the primary outcome, which occurred in 52% of the patients in the amitriptyline group, 55% of those in the topiramate group, and 61% of those in the placebo group."
4
I cured my migraines with a series of simple neck exercises done each morning in the shower. I continue to be shocked at the medical profession’s rush to medicate, and its lack of knowledge when it comes to the benefits of exercise as a cure or preventive.
6
My 10 year old daughter started having severe migraines at age 6 and they lasted 8-10 hours with vomiting, flashing lights, horrible “I want to die” level pain which is terrifying in a child that young. It would be 1-2 a month with 3 days post headache sickness - which all combined to make her fearful & afraid to do any activities. We hid out a lot at home. Awful.
Good news : She hasn’t had one in a full year, now. Back to activities. (She does have minor headaches 2-3 x a month however which are cured within 15 minutes with this combo: one or two Advil, one 500 mg magnesium capsule and one small bottle of Coca Cola. Taken all together and ASAP as headache starts. The coke is, oddly, important - bubbles and caffeine make the Advil work much faster (I had read this and it seems to be true!) (i believe it is what allows us to get away with the smaller, 1 advil dose as well)
But I think the BIG reason the migraines are gone is because we began a strict vitamin regime (guided by a combo of neurologist advice & feedback from other sufferers)
She religiously takes 1 COQ10 & 2 Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) every morning, 1 Magnesium & 2 more Vitamin B2 again at night. (Dose according to weight). It took 2 months to fully kick in but it WORKED!! Changed our lives. We also discovered that “Monday” headaches are real - caused by sleep schedule change over the weekend. So we set the alarm for the same time 7 days a week (UGH) this helps a lot with Monday thing (mostly)
Hope this helps.
19
If we are allowed to offer a book to read here in this forum, I would recommend Angela Stanton's Fighting the Migraine Epidemic. This book and FB group of migraineurs are a compassionate group of educated people who know how to minimize, if not eliminated Migraines through specific diet modification and electrolyte balance! Thank you.
8
For what it’s worth, the amitriptyline mentioned in the article put a complete end to my daughter’s migraines.
I am 60 years old and had migraines regularly for more than 4 decades impacting on my personal life heavily. No treatment was working. I was in a place where frankly I was ready to try anything. I was EXTREMELY lucky to cross path with Dr Angela Stanton and her protocol. Having being with her 2 years I can say that as long as I do what she asks of me, I have no migraines and this without medication: I have my life back! (And no, it is not a con). As an adult I try as much as I can to avoid medication. For your children sake and futur health, try it, there is nothing to lose and all to gain.
8
Although there is no known history of migraines in our family, from toddlerhood my child suffered from migraines that matched these symptoms exactly: he would vomit, then sleep, then feel better. Until he was old enough to understand and disclose the pain, we thought that he just had an intermittent GI issue. It happened infrequently enough that we didn't seek medical help for his symptoms. When he was in around fourth or fifth grade his pediatrician referred him for allergy testing, and it was the pediatric allergist who told us that allergies can cause migraines. My son received immunotherapy for his allergies and has been migraine-free since then. He is now is his 30s.
5
@Kay Thank you for your post. May I ask what your son was allergic to? Glad he is doing well!
@emma Thanks, Emma. He had a variety of allergies, but the primary ones were trees, weeds, grasses, and mold.
3
I hate articles like this that start by pushing medication. In 19 paragraphs, the basics: "along with lifestyle measures like staying well hydrated, eating regular meals, not skipping breakfast, getting enough sleep and getting some exercise." are only introduced in the 1th paragraph, and reference to the main trigger, stress, is further below. An upside-down approach. The first thing to do when migraine hits, is determine what caused it, and work to avoid the cause. Overstimulated children who suffer from migraines usually improve when the stimulation diminish, and when they learn how to lead healthy lifestyles (as per above). Of course, there are few cases in which migraines are resistant to many treatments and then medications are a must. But starting by giving a kid a pill when s/he has a migraine is not the right approach.
5
@RoseMarieDC, my migraines are highly responsive to magnesium supplementation and allergens (airborne) but also require a daily anticonvulsant. Not a whole lot I can do about the allergens other than take pills/spray/shots as Mother Nature is pervasive and HEPA filers and cleaning only do so much. Thank goodness for medicine. I would not deny a child with this misery pain management any more than I would deny a child with asthma an inhaler. (I say that a PCP kept trying tricyclics with me and they were awful. But everyone is different.)
4
I had my first migraine as a fourth-grader and have suffered my whole life, even after menopause. What has worked for me for 30 years is taking about four generic Excedrin (aspirin, acetaminophen, caffeine) with a sugary caffeinated beverage as soon as my aura kicks in. I don't feel great for the rest of the day, but I can function.
3
Vestibular migraines, which bring on often painless and 'aura less', but debilitating imbalance and an assortment of other balance complications are also common tho rarely recognized and diagnosed. Unfortunately vestibular migraines are also very common- information is available at the Vestibular Disorders Association website.
9
I had my first classic migraine at age 15 and migraine ruled my life for 50 years. Strong family history allowed for easy diagnosis in the late 1960’s. I had attacks three to five times a month, each with a duration of one to three days. Tried, without relief, ergot derivatives, Darvon, codeine, beta-blockers, and eliminating alcohol, chocolate, wine, and cheese. Amerge offered the first effective relief. But when I went on a Low FODMAP diet to treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome, eliminating gluten ended my migraines. I have since met other former migraine sufferers with the same story. I think that we still have a lot to learn about migraine.
9
Imitrex worked pretty well for me for a while back when it first came out. Problem was my insurance limited me to one or maybe it was two, injections a month because it was so expensive. I always put off taking it for as long as I could for fear I might need it worse later. Unfortunately I now know that it should have been taken at the first intimation of a headache. Thank you insurance companies. Hope it’s better nowadays- now that I don’t need it.
8
After a concussion, I began to suffer from migraines and was prescribed nortriptilene (sic), which did absolutely nothing for my migraines, and caused an alarming weight gain. It wasn’t until I changed to a female headache specialist that other options were suggested. An herbal combo called Migrelief, a B vitamin, and surprise to me, meditation, all seem to help. I’ve always done some form of daily exercise, so that was already in the mix. When weather or stress triggers a particularly bad one, Excedrin migraine works so much better than the scrip meds - and _no_ weight gain! As we all know, some doctors tend to default to prescription meds that cause more harm than good.
6
@Liz DiMarco Weinmann your name caught my eye bc DiMarco is my maiden name too!
The preventives I was on and now stopped would cause weight gain. The excedrin migraine caused rebound headaches for me. For years I used Naratriptan but it was taking more meds to relieve one headache. I was growing immune. In the middle of August of this year I started the Stanton Protocol. It’s different that anything I’ve ever tried.
It works. I’m sorry I didn’t find it sooner.
2
SCM muscle
My son was diagnosed with a migraine (he had pain and sound and light sensitivity) in the emergency room. He had two rounds of injections (neurotransmitter blockers, I think) and two naps before he was released 6 hours later. Turns out it was all a mistake . When the symptoms returned a week later a chiropractor treated his SCM neck muscles for trigger points. This was painful but it worked immediately. We sometimes treat him ourselves when symptoms return, often set off by singing or playing the sax.
I have sent two of my university students to the chiro and both have stopped taking migraine meds. Find a chiro or osteo or massage therapist who knows about this stuff before trying meds.
1
I had constant migraines while in high school and it was surely a combination of things. I kept a diary as a suggestion from my physician, but I was truly against taking any prescribed pill to eradicate this discomfort that was hindering me from leading a productive and happy life. I came to realize stress and pressure to do well in my advance placement and early college courses I was taking while still attending high school had a major trigger to my migraines. In addition because of constant stress I was an anxiety eater, eating unhealthy things such as processed foods, sweets, and salty things that were exacerbating my condition. After modifying and cleaning up my diet and incorporating exercise which helped tremendously on decreasing my stress my cortisol levels had a drastic change and my migraines slowly but surely stopped. No need to always prescribe a pill for every little thing, glad I don’t have to be tied down to taking a pill for something like this for the rest of my life. No thanks . Love my life natural and clean :)
4
It's always worth asking other migraine sufferers what they do to treat their migraine.
I'd read Joan Didion's essay on migraine and when I met her, asked her what helped her.
She named a medication that I've never seen anyone else name as a migraine treatment but I was able to use it a few times and it did indeed provide great relief. It was legal but hard to get and unlike her, I never found a physician willing to continue it as a treatment.
3
@fast/furious what was the medication?
This information is so encouraging. My son began regularly suffering from migraines at age 5. At the height of his headaches they only subsided after vomiting. During 5th & 6th grade he missed up to 8 days of school per month. I had to take intermittent FMLA during that time in order to stay home with him and not be penalized. It was stressful for the entire family and I often felt helpless as how to care for my son. Finally, his abated when he began puberty and now he has them only occasionally. My husband and I both have them occasionally as well. I feel like these headaches are so often misunderstood as the symptoms vary so much from person to person. I hope that the varied treatments will continue to improve and evolve in order to bring relief to migraine sufferers.
6
@Susan Q Allen I highly recommend that you and any one else suffering from migraine of any type (vestibular, hemipelagic, aura, and many others in addition to the "normal" ones) look into the Stanton Migraine Protocol. It has changed my life. I was a near-chronic sufferer, since my early 20s, but far worse during peri-meopause, and without any drugs, my migraines are now under control. It is a fairly strict diet-based protocol (but puts the lie to the idea of "triggers" as we have been taught) whose basis is that one component of the genetic connection in migraine is an inability to metabolize carbohydrates without it producing electrolyte imbalance. I have moved to a high-fat, low carb, grain and sugar free diet, and between that and keeping attentive to my electrolyte by eating high potassium foods, supplementing magnesium and using extra sodium (migraine neurons burn way more electrolyte), I have a new life and a happy brain. I cannot thank Dr. Stanton enough, and I encourage anyone at the end of their rope or who has doubts that the Rx industry can do more for them than throw some random pills their way, to check out Stanton's protocol. She is on to the deeper root cause of migraine and her research makes way more sense than anything I've read, connecting genetics, insulin resistance, metabolic disorder, stress, hormones and food in a creative manner. Her FB page is an incredible source of support in implementing. Please look it up if you suffer!
6
All these suggestions might have helped me, back in the late 60s to early 80s, if someone had taken me to the doctor abiut my migraines. For anything else, off to the pede we went. Not until I went to the student health center in college was I diagnosed and treated properly. It still boggles my mind--and induces more than a little bitterness, I'm sorry to admit. One of my greatest fears as a parent was that my son would get them, but we think he's only had a few. Now I guess I'll worry about grandchildren.
7
@Texan
Same here. My chronic migraines caused constant suffering in my childhood and teenage years. I began going to neurologists in my 20s and 30s - before there was a reliable treatment for my migraine. In my childhood and teenage years, my parents and doctors never took this seriously.
As an adult, I must have been subjected to everything: narcotics, magnesium, topamax, blood pressure drugs, calcium channel blockers, antipsychotics, restricted diets, prescribed exercise, prescribed sleep schedules.
The only thing that ever worked was Imitrex, first as an injection and then as a pill. Imitrex came on the market when I was in my 40s when I didn't have insurance - Glaxo Smith Klein charged $25 for a single pill. Often I had to take one every day for 2 or 3 weeks. I didn't care what it cost. To finally have relief was everything.
People who haven't had a migraine have no idea how painful they are.
My headaches pretty much stopped after I went through menopause. I now have a headache maybe once a month. I make sure I keep sumatriptan in the house.
If your child complains of severe frequent headaches, take them seriously. Forget the pediatrician. Take them to a pediatric neurologist. If I could have had reliable treatment at some point during the first 45 years of my life, my life would have been very different.
10
Wow. This gives me such vivid memories of the countless hours I spent in the darkened rooms in various nurses' offices through elementary school to high school, so many days each week. The off-mint taste of Maxalt dissolving in my mouth and the anticipation of the worsened migraine that the medicine brought before it went away. There was so much shame during that time, so much guilt at having to leave class and try to explain it to peers. And it was so confusing to experience aura in its many forms.
My mother always told me that migraine protected us. It might flare up for a week at a time without explanation but it taught me how to take care of my body and my mind. It taught me how to eat, sleep, and hydrate. Time after time I've seen my migraine be a barometer of emotional distress, remind me when I need a break.
I don't wish migraine on anyone but I can't help but wonder who I'd be without it. It forced me to get to know myself, knowledge
that now forms the basis of how I approach everything I do.
24
@H
My mother told me that children didn't have headaches. It was pretty lonely suffering without support.
5
@Greater Metropolitan Area, This is what i was told as a child and I was not allowed to get a pain killer like a Tylenol or Ibuprofen. I'm 48 and now finally my mom takes my migraines seriously... last year she apologized to me.
1
@CET
That important conversation apparently meant a lot to you.
Unfortunately, my mother and I were never able to have one like that. She died when I was 26.
Eventually, most migraine prophylaxis medication loses its effectiveness. The one preventive therapy which does not lose its effectiveness---biofeedback. Biofeedback requires a big commitment, but if all else fails, give it a try.
3
@McCamy Taylor
It didn't work for me. I worked with a biofeedback specialist for 2 months and became very adept at becoming so relaxed that my mind would leave my body and look down at me from a great height.
It was worthless for migraine but I very much enjoyed learning how to do that.
6
Tylenol 3 was the only thing that snuffed it out for me. The worst part of having migraines was the fear that they would occur a time when a bed and a dark room would not be available.
7
ESTROGEN and MAGNESIUM works for me!!! My two to three day-long migraines with aura, light and sound sensitivity, vomiting and shaky / sick feeling started at age 11 and were accidentally cured when I was 52, when I was finally old enough to be allowed to start estrogen. I use topical (on regular skin) bioidentical synthetic estrogen (estradiol) replacement packets and I quickly discovered that two milligrams would stop a vicious, searing migraine within 45 minutes. For me, it takes five or six milligrams of topical estrogen (Divigel) spread out / per day to absolutely prevent migraines. Using any form of progesterone “cancels“ the estrogen and restarts the migraine pain, requiring more estrogen. So all those years of severe pain were probably falling estrogen or low estrogen or high progesterone days in my cycle. Now, I get the occasional aura without the migraine— if I am low on magnesium. Taking estrogen causes me to “use up” a lot of magnesium. I take 500 to 800 milligrams of magnesium glycinate (other forms of magnesium cause me to have poor absorption —upset stomach, etc.). That amount keeps the visual aura away! I think that is critical because I read that the aura can be correlated to stroke, so I take magnesium every night. If I see the start of a zig-zag rainbow blind spot from low mag or stress, I take powdered electrolytes in water plus magnesium to stop it right away — i.e. ten minutes, instead of the typical hour of slow moving expansion and fade out.
7
From family experience:
Childhood and adult migraine can also be ameliorated by prophylactic Inderal (propranolol) the beta-blocker that several commenters have already mentioned.
I would try it before amitriptyline or topiramate. And I would consult more than one neurologist before deciding on a long-term treatment plan.
Also: although abdominal migraine is much less common in older children and adults than it is in very young children, it does occur and may be misdiagnosed.
7
All of this is true. I tried the chiropractor, that helped.
Acupuncture is effective for kid’s migraines. Not magic, but helpful.
2
Yes --to the theory of electrolyte imbalance causing migraines. After 35 years of debilitating migraines and cluster headaches, I switched to a ketogenic diet and significantly higher salt intake and have also been headache-free for over a year. Dr. Angela Stanton has written a life-changing book entitled: Fighting the Migraine Epidemic, where she describes this protocol in detail. It changed my life, and now my 8 year-old son who has long exhibited signs of child migraine (as cyclical vomiting syndrome, no head pain) will be spared years of pain. Every few months when he comes down with an episode of extreme vertigo and nausea we immediately treat with electrolytes and salt and successfully thwart an attack. Also, for those not willing to make dietary changes, taking the painkiller as soon as the initial prodrome symptom is identified (long before the pain hits) also helps greatly.
12
I had migraines as a child so long ago, the miracle drug was the newly introduced Excedrin (1960)
My mother, who was not normally the most demonstrative person in the world when it came to showing affection, was devoted to minimizing my misery as much as possible.
We came up with Excedrin at the first sign, Bromo Seltzer for my stomach, and one of my father's handkerchiefs soaked in rubbing alcohol tightly tied around my head
Then it was to bed in a darkened bedroom and wait it out, or if I was lucky, to fall asleep at the first hint of the abatement of pain and nausea.
Lost many days at school and having fun on weekends, but because she had them when she was a child, my mom was empathetic to my plight
Oddly, the migraines ended when I recovered from the measles. The last time I had to be in a dark room. Never knew if there was any connection.
I would have welcomed any of the current treatments if they worked, but my mother's experiment with basic over-the-counter remedies helped during the dark ages of the late 1950s.
10
@New Senior This sounds so familiar!
Mine got worse through the years, then ended after menopause. I knew something big had happened when one day, someone at work had a headache. I went into my bag to get the Excedrin and ibuprofen - but when I checked, I didn't have any. There would have been a time when I would have been petrified not to carry them.
1
This might sound redundant to today's parents, but I will say it anyway.
I have had migraines all my life, but they were impossibly acute between ages of 10-22. I could not get anyone around me to believe that my head hurt in a way that I could see colors, flashing lights, and couldn't face light. Most of the time, I would throw up, shut my eyes and stay in a fetal position. One is not popular when one stops dead, shuts down, throws up - out of nowhere in school or at home.
I was told by adults that I was making it up, imagining it, that it was simply not possible to get that many headaches, and I was shirking responsibility. The remedy was often a purgative - which did nothing - not even as a placebo.
Only after seeing a physician in the US, as an adult, was I diagnosed with migraine.
It gets better with time. Sleeping in the dark with a hot pack on my head helps. Very little else does.
I.e., if your kid is complaining of a headache, and it is frequent, and cannot function - please listen, and take her or him to the doctor and let them articulate in their own way, in their own time, in words familiar to them about what they are feeling. I could not - for the longest time - get any adult to understand what I was seeing or experiencing. Throwing up was defined as: "he eats without discipline and has a stomach problem."
It is real, no one imagines a migraine. Thank you.
34
If your child can keep it down, a drink with caffeine in it (coffee, cola, etc), will stop a migraine within minutes if taken at the first sign of a headache. Got this tip from our pediatrician when our daughter could not tolerate Imitrex. Worked like a charm.
7
My son’s migraines were so debilitating, he had to leave high in his junior year. Our odyssey of finding help spanned two excruciating years for him, and countless pills, therapies and doctors. Finally we found a doctor who injected Botox into the top of his head. His headaches greatly decreased until he was headache free six months later. That was five years ago. He has had two migraines since and they were nowhere near the severity of his former bouts. Keep this in mind if the pills don’t work, I wish we had found Botox sooner.
5
@Margaret Sullivan
My neurologist tried Botox injections on me in 1998 and it did work for awhile. But I became allergic to Botox and had to stop. Other migraine patients she treated who weren't allergic to it continued to have good results for years. It's worth investigating.
3
It appears that the root cause of migraines may in fact be electrolyte imbalance in the brain which can be controlled and monitored successfully by supplementing salts (electrolytes ) with proper hydration. Carbohydrates directly effect a homeostatic balance of electrolytes and thus need to be effectively limited and in some cases eliminated. Through this protocol I have been migraine free for one year and now use no pharmaceutical medications. It would be wonderful if children with migraines could also be free of medications that may have life-long negative effects on their brains.
11
@David Zischke
I take a 5 mg tablet of Valium. It works the best. Maybe 8-10 times a year, now down to maybe 3-4 times a year. It works when nothing else will. And a hot pack in a dark room with no noise.
1
@David Zischke This is the Stanton protocol, correct? I also just left a long comment above. It's good to see it mentioned here in the comments several times. Maybe people will seek it out and find the relief we all deserve. Glad to hear of your success!
5
@Christine It is the Stanton Migraine Protocol. :) Indeed, this comment section has been a great thing. many readers have joined the Facebook migraine group already. :) Very happy to help all migraineurs who join.
2
I got migraines once or twice a month from puberty on, triggered by both sinus headaches and hormonal changes.
For me, the key was to get ahead of the headache, and take the painkiller at the first sign of it coming on. Generally that subdued the nausea, the acute pain, and usually the aura that would tell me that the headache was transforming into something I couldn't handle.
I taught my son, when he was still young - perhaps 8 - to do the same thing. Take the painkiller at the first sign of the headache. It was tricky, because I had to leave acetaminophen at the school and get an annual doctor's note instructing the nurse to dose him if he came in with a headache. In my day I was allowed to carry aspirin - from junior high on - without it being assumed I was a dealer.
It's is effective for the occasional migraine sufferer, and having a plan helps kids cope. They have control, and find that management is a significant part of treatment.
4
As a chronic migraine sufferer who tried every kind of remedy, both "natural" and pharmaceutical, I can tell you that putting a child on this or any other type of regimen will only serve to make matters worse. By the time I got to the bottom of my fifteen plus migraines per month, I was taking Topamax, and triptans (for the breakthrough migraines). Anti-depressants were also tried. None of this worked and only made things worse.
By the grace of the internet, and being a member of several migraine support groups where the topic of the day centered around how to hoard migraine meds, I found a woman, a neuroscientist who had pinpointed the cause.
Essentially, migraine is a symptom of a metabolic disorder. A strict diet that eliminates all grains, sugar, and most fruits is called for. Along with that, salt pills are taken with each 8 oz glass of water throughout the day. What this does is to help us maintain electrolyte balance and stabilize blood sugar.
If you are at all interested, check out Angela Stanton's migraine protocol. She has a private FB group and a team of moderators who are on call almost 24 hours per day...for free. I went from 15-20 migraines per month to maybe 2 and even when I do get one, I'm able to rid myself of it without the use of drugs. I would also mention that this is not only for migraines. Connections have been made between neurological disorders and metabolism. Grain Brain is one title that comes to mind.
9
I am in my 50s now; I started getting migraines when I was 8. At their peak I probably averaged two a month. The only medicine made available to me was Cafergot; it came in a foul tasting tiny green pill that I was supposed to let dissolve under my tongue at the headache's onset. It never worked, not even once...so frustrating. I can't tell you how many hours of my childhood were lost to the debilitating agony. Mercifully, the migraines decreased in both frequency and severity as I aged. And new drugs came along. Imitrex has been fantastic; it has never failed to get rid of a migraine if I feel one coming on. I still maintain that it's difficult for non-migraine sufferers to truly comprehend the pain of a migraine. I used to fantasize about putting my head through a pane of glass to end the agony.
6
Quote: "Although it has long been thought that certain foods — like chocolate, aged cheese, processed meats, citrus fruits and artificial sweeteners — can act as triggers for a migraine headache, experts say this has yet to be proven. The chocolate myth may have arisen, Dr. Gelfand suggested, because the premonitory phase before a migraine attack often induces a craving for sweets."
What experts? It HAS BEEN PROVEN beyond any reasonable doubts that certain foods are triggers. As for Dr. Gelfand's myth, I am an example that it is not a myth. I cannot touch chocolate (for more than 50 years now) without triggering a migraine. Oranges (but not other citruses) are even worse.
6
I just can’t tell you the pain I suffered as a child with migraine headaches. I had the full gambit of nausea, vomiting and excruciating head pains on the left side of my head. I will never forget a Cub Scout trip to a baseball game in Chicago. I was so sick and vomiting on the train my scout leader was so upset, she’d never seen a kid in so much pain.
My parents met us at the train station and collapsed i my Mothes arms in agony.
In those days there was just nothing for a kid to take and the pain would crescendo so bad all I could do was vomit.
Oh please parents don’t let your kids suffer like I did. I am so glad the medical community finally understands the pain we go through with this horrible affliction as young as 5 years old!
My biggest trigger are weather changes with low pressure moving in, Vitamin C and lack of sleep. I’m old now so I have finally found Maxalt helps without the rebound headaches of Imitrex. Ice bags help a little as well as medical marijuana which is legal in AZ now. If I can just get to sleep with all the pain.
Best of luck in figuring out you triggers, it’s a must if you hope to get any relief. .
39
This article does a reasonable job of suggesting treatments for migraine, but it overly focused on pharmaceuticals. There are myriad supplements that can be used to treat migraines prior to subjecting your loved ones to pharmaceuticals. Dr. Szperka's point about these supplements is well-taken.
1) B-2, COQ10, Magnesium and Flax Seed Oil, among others. Administer daily and/or with the onset of a migraine (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4393401/)
2) As touched upon briefly, an elimination diet is key to determining what's causing the problem and is a highly effective method for mitigating the occurrence of migraines (https://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/migraine-elimination-diet#1). Caffeine is a common trigger for those suffering from migraines, and the author fails to mention that chocolate contains a significant amount of caffeine (~12mg per ounce), so that a bar of chocolate has as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.
3) The author is correct that stress plays a significant role in the onset of migraine headaches, and I would add that neck tension can also contribute to the onset of migraine headaches, so massage can play an important role as well https://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/features/massage-therapy-stress-relief-much-more#1.
All told, migraine is still very poorly understood as a condition, but techniques such as these can go a long way towards mitigating reoccurrences without the use of pharmaceuticals.
13
Antidepressants can have serious side effects, especially in children and adolescents. What kind of long-term safety testing is being done before using these serious drugs off label in kids? And why on earth are we giving them to children if they don't work better than a placebo?
This is complete insanity.
7
@Polly When you are curled up in a fetal position with your eyes crushed shut to block the light from piercing into your head, beset with nausea and yet hoping you throw up because it might actually make you feel a little better, and not able to function physically, mentally, or emotionally you will understand.
As a person who has suffered from migraines for years, as did my mother before me, and as a former school teacher who has witnessed young children suffering from this debilitating condition, I understand completely why taking the risk of side effects with a grain of salt happens. Do we need more research? Yes. Should we do nothing until we get that? No. It is just too painful. If you see someone with a migraine, you must realize that they are desperate for relief.
21
@SHK
I have migraines and so does my mother.
That doesn't mean we should give drugs found to be no better than placebos to children.
Classic book: Oliver Sacks' Migraine.
Congrats on your click bait headline, caught me. No, didn't say there's a new cure.
First drug recommended is a powerful 20th C SSRI, well, maybe a last resort for daily migraines.
Then it says "as well as those in the placebo group."
More accurate head: "maybe there's some relief for some who haven't tried everything" but that's not news.
2
@Oreamnos My last resort recommendation--Stanton Migraine Protocol. I left a lengthy comment above so can't write another one, but scroll up to find it. This electrolyte and diet based protocol has changed my life. Look it up!
2
My vomit producing, vertigo, photophobic migraines started as a 4-year-old. Each episode was 4 days plus a day of recovery. 4-6x per year. Homeopathy, full-term pregnancy, and a mouth guard ended them at 38. They were alternatively, non-diagnosed as an allergy to chocolate, sinusitis, and who knows what else. I didn't get the flu until I stopped getting migraines.
It's always fascinated me that my full-term pregnancy was completely migraine free, and for almost two years after, I didn't have a one. OCP and now HRT help a lot.
1
Migraines do not run in our family yet my daughter had her first migraine at age 14 shortly before her first menses. It lasted 2.5 months until she was seen by a pediatric neurologist at the University of Virginia. He prescribed a daily beta blocker that relieved the migraine in 24 hrs.
Later, when she began having breakthrough migraines, she was prescribed Topamax. She could not do any of her schoolwork on this drug. We later learned it’s nickname is Dopamax. She went back to taking a different beta blocker until she finished college and graduate school. And now she takes no meds and is migraine free.
4
"...CHAMP, found that a reduction of 50 percent or more in the number of headache days occurred in both groups taking either the drug...as well as those in the placebo group, and the active drugs caused more side effects...We give patients the choice, and the expectation of a response drives a clinically positive result."
This is madness.
How can a "doctor" rationalize prescribing a "drug" with side effects to a child knowing full well that it works no better than a placebo?
Despite all the gimmicks to the contrary, it's still unethical to test drugs on children because they can't give informed consent.
3
When I was a child my occasional diagnosed migranes were stopped within 20 seconds by caffergot, an ergot derivative. Amazing.
Eating chocolate definitely produced a headache, whether or not a migrane.
After puberty, they went away.
@Jonathan Katz
Is that the same as caffeine? I find having caffeine is sometimes the only thing that takes my headaches away.
3
No, cafergot is a pharmaceutical containing ergotamine and, it sounds like, caffeine, but it's not caffeine alone.
I had my first migraine in my mid-twenties and they increased in both number and severity as the years passed. I had the most attacks in the week prior to my monthly period, but they were by no means limited to that time of the month.
Consultations with neurologists failed to help, though I did try taking Topomax as a preventative. It did not reduce my headaches, and I felt like I was living in slow motion while on it.
In the mid-nineties my husband (a physician) brought home a sample of Imitrex injections that a drug rep had brought to his office, and it was nothing short of a miracle. In ten minutes my headache was gone. I can't understand why none of the neurologists I'd seen had suggested it.
My headaches did not lessen in frequency after surgical menopause in my late forties. The Imitrex dealt with the headache pain, but they still occurred up to a dozen times a month. Again, it was my husband who asked me one day if I'd ever been prescribed cyproheptadine- an antihistamine that was often used to reduce migraines in children. None of the neurologists had prescribed or even mentioned this drug. After a single month of taking one dose of cyproheptadine daily, my headaches dramatically decreased in number. I've had no side effects from taking it.
I am now in my mid-sixties, still taking cyproheptadine daily, still using Imitrex as needed- but probably no more than 10-12 times a year.
5
@lois Pasternack
No male doctor I ever saw would "believe" that my migraines preceded period, as you mention and many of my female relatives experienced.
They refused to consider detailed data that I, a trained scientist, presented to them.
I went out with a bang at menopause, cluster headaches and worse migraines, then sweet peace.
11
@Ivy
My mother, my niece and I all had severe pre-menstrual migraines in the week before menstruation.
Scientists should do more research into any link between migraine and reproductive hormones. This seems logical since so many women experience diminution of migraine with menopause.
4
I've had classic migraine since I was a young boy, throughout my early years not knowing what it was. Back then it averaged two attacks a year, and now at the age of seventy-five, about two a month. The trigger is usually a flash of bright light like the sun reflecting off a car's windshield; at other times it just seems spontaneous. It always begins with noticing that I'm developing a small blind spot in my vision, at which point I can see the beginnings of a yellow and black, crosshatched, strobing pattern when I block outside light. But I know I'm much more fortunate than most sufferers because if I immediately chew up and swallow an NSAID, usually two aspirin I keep handy at all times, it interrupts the progression and the entire episode fades away in another thirty minutes or so. If I ignore it, a very painful headache ensues that can last as long as twenty-four hours. I'd urge migraine sufferers to be aware of any prodrome that may signal their onset, and to try that fast dose of aspirin as a treatment.
16
@Pragmatist
As an FYI, there are now FDA approved injectable monocloanal antibody (once/month) that have been very successful in the treatment of both migraine and cluster headaches. Sadly (no surprise) this is quite expensive, but more effective than prior "treatments". You can probably get some help with the expense with Medicare or any of the usual health insurance companies if not in medicare.
2
I'm shocked when I read that treatments are only for people who have more than 15 migraines a month. From age 10-18, I had migraines 'only' twice a week, and they lasted about 36 hours. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. (Cure was leaving home and using a nasal decongestant spray when the tell-tale warning odor hit.)
8
Thank you Ms. Brody for a careful look at migraine headaches. The comments offer a small sample of the extraordinary level of suffering they can cause, and also many welcome stories of relief.
I will only add that migraines are a far, far more common problem than commonly assumed. Some series find as many as 40% of people can experience them. The mechanism involving electrical patterns of activation, and resulting inflammation at times appears to be phenomena that are related to the structures present in everyone's brain.
The fact that relief can work is heartening, reading the referenced papers reminds us that migraine episodes can be very, very hard to prevent, and often fail to respond to treatment, even in 2019.
I wonder if we need a major step forward in understanding normal brain function in order to really see this suffering substantially end for all affected.
3
I have a family history of migraine, among the females.....my grandmother, her mother, etc....I started with them at about age 5, and clearly remember lying on the kitchen floor because the linoleum was cooling. (Wasn't given any meds for them...my mother didn't "believe" in it).
As I grew older, they worsened, with visual symptoms (opthalmic migraines--blinding bright lights, sometimes with flashing, or strange shapes in my visual field---see Oliver Sacks book "Migraine") and the classic nausea and vomiting. I took Excedrin, knew of no prescription drugs for them then.
Later was tried on Elavil which did nothing....only when Imitrex (Sumatriptan) was released did I find relief for them. Within 20 minutes of taking a pill I would be fine. Amazing and such a relief (I had missed much school and work over the years with them...and no one takes "headache" seriously as a work excuse!)
One of my two sons also had some migraines, not so consistently as I had had and Imitrex works for him as well.
Sorry, for little kids I just can't agree with "nutraceuticals, " in what the doctor nearly admits is a placebo form. That is the same as thinking/acting as if the child is really not in pain. Children are people too! Believe them when they say they are in pain!
25
@RLiss
I’m with you on believeing kids about their suffering. But B vitamins and magnesium aren’t placebos at all! Read the studies on them: they help a lot of people and are a much safer place to start than drugs.
2
@RLiss I'm glad imitrex works for your family but watch out for increasing/worsening migraines, as Imitrex can cause them, trapping people in a cycle of medication overuse headaches.
I suffered migraines periodically as a child and as an adult until I was about 25 years old. My dad suffered from migraines from Age 12 until he passed away at 83, although he said he got less of them when he entered his late 70s.
Around when I was 25, I started tracking "what happened" and "what did I eat" in the previous 72 hours prior to a migraine. Lo and behold, a little bit of note taking and "fishbone analysis" showed me headache by headache, seafood consumption was causing my headaches.
Once I eliminated any kind of food that lived in a river or ocean from my diet, my migraines went away. I'm 61 now and not had one in the last 36 years.
That approach might now work for a lot of people, but it helped me. Maybe it might hurt some other poor soul.
18
I inherited visual aura migraines from my mother. I'm male. First episode at thirteen. I thought I was dying. I've been "fortunate" enough to only get five or six a year in the fifty intervening years. I tried pretty much everything and found that *nothing* worked to either prevent them or stop/reduce their severity, except a trip to the ER and an injection in the glute to put me out.
Until now.
When Californians approved medical cannabis a few years ago, i gave it a try. 1:1 ratio of THC to CBD, ~10mg of each. There's little actual analgesic effect, but I can put the pain "over there" , which takes the pain out of the realm of it being all-encompassing, debilitating and the total focus of my being. I can sleep, and even function at ~75% through the four to six hours that used to see me in a darkened room, writhing in pain.
I "highly" recommend cannabis.
12
@Greg Me too. I put aside the pharmaceuticals, weed ticked all the migraine boxes: pain, throwing up, dizzy.
3
I was intrigued by the mention of cognitive therapy for migraines. Can anyone tell more about that?
I'm all for non-pharmaceutical solutions, where possible. I've tried most migraine meds (even the new ones), and either they don't work for me, or they work a bit but the side effects are awful.
(Best med for me is still plain old Excedrin Migraine; and sometimes - Sprix. )
The other thing I have found to help in my case is daily exercise, first thing in the day, especially (and even if) I wake up with migraine. I used to avoid exercise with migraine, because initially it seems to make it worse. But if I push through that, gradually increasing intensity of the exercise, it usually helps reduce the migraine pain, sometimes even completely eliminates it. Again, your results may vary, so I am not recommending this to everyone...but something maybe to discuss with your neurologist and see if it's wise to try.
Another thing: Breathing. See articles on double-length exhale breathing (that is, do twice as long a count for the exhale), or other approaches like box breathing, or breathing in a paper bag (or into your hands). I've even found that breathing through a towel or blanket can help.
Finally: Meditation and muscle relaxation, etc. I've found that if I stop resisting the pain and jus calmly observe it, it seems to reduce even almost disappear for moments at a time. If instead I tense up and seem to "fight" the pain, it gets worse.
8
@Vlad
Read: Back in Control by David Hanscom. He is a spinal surgeon who used to see recurrence of chronic pain after doing surgical procedures that appeared obvious on X-rays. Surgically, he “fixed” the problem; but for a surprisingly large percentage of patients the chronic pain returned and persisted, even though there was nothing structurally that could be causing it.
He describes these expression of “pain patterns” that are similar to phantom limb pain that occur in the brain. The experience of pain is absolutely real, but there is nothing that is physically causing the pain. I eradicated my formerly weekly migraine and cluster headaches on a ketogenic and higher salt diet, but when I become slightly congested due to simple cold, my "pain pattern" activates and I often re-experience the same ice-pick stabbing pain in my temple of the cluster headache. I have “trained” myself to reassure my head that this is just my “phantom pain pattern,” and, although it may take a few hours, the pain will completely subside, (unlike when I had excruciating, debilitating pain that lasted without reprieve for three days and nights at a time.)
Anxiety will increase the inflammatory response, and inflammation will exacerbate the pain pattern response. So, if you can remain calm, even when there is physical pain, it will not rise to debilitating levels.
My son (he is 42 now) suffered terrible migraines starting at age 5 or 6. A pediatric neurologist put him on Inderol, a beta blocker. Only the brand name worked, not the generic. He took a low dose prophylacticly every day - as long as he took the dose at the same time every day and did not miss a dose he rarely had a headache. If he did miss a dose within 24 hours he would have a very bad migraine. There were some issues with his compliance in his teenage years and he would pay the price (a migraine). Eventually in his early twenties he outgrew the headaches, stopped the medication, and rarely has a headache.
10
I am a retired physician who struggled with migraine for the past several years and found a relief lately.
As a boy, I grew up my mother suffering from migraine, who stoped cooking or ironing to lay down frequently. I did not have any disabling migraine until in my early seventies. it became more severe and frequent. Almost weekly headaches lasting about 10 hours or so. My neurologist experts could not help. I tried on vitamins, magnesium, antidepressants, massages, and acupunctures. I avoided beers, wine, cheese. None of these helped. I began meticulous diary of food, and habits. After several years, I think I found triggers, MSG and sudden exposure to cold ( cold AC or cold swmming pool etc).
My migraine improved about 80%. I no longer need Imitrex.
I eat cheese with no problem.
7
After a lifetime of migraines, 63 now, and reading every article I see, each person’s migraine experiences are different. Our symptoms and what works to treat us are different. I go to a headache center here in Philadelphia and highly recommend everyone to do the same thing. Family medicine docs are great but not for migraines. I used to get a headache every day till Aimovig, now it’s 3/week and I am so happy. I take a host of preventatives, most mentioned by others, wellbutrin wasn’t. Anxiety causes some of my headaches. For abortives, dihydroergotamine hasn’t been mentioned. It’s the best for me, it’s a nasal spray that can stop a chain headache in its tracks. When I get a whopper I need a dark room, an anti-emetic to calm the nausea and an abortive. I am so glad I have my own business at home! I wish all of you the best, migraines are horrible, and it’s hard for other people to understand. For you kids, try to bring peace into into your life, this is a big part of getting past these migraines.
8
@ScottC :
as a child (and adult) migraine sufferer with a strong family history, I just don't believe "stress" plays much of a role. Yes, stress headaches happen and I'm sure people have "mixed" headaches, with aspects of both, but migraines are a different animal.
10
Agree totally about wide variety of experiences and solutions.
Two years ago, at age 53 and after a lifetime of migraines, a friend told me to go to Mayo, and Dr. Ivan Garza there changed my life.
3
Stress for me (and father) plays a role when it is released--when the adrenaline falls. Then comes the migraine (among other times).
3
We live in a very "busy" environment in this country. I find that what sets me off are certain strong aromas. It's why I do my laundry at the laundromat early in the morning. The perfumes used to scent the dryer sheets are a perfect lead in for a migraine. So to are the aromas in some of the stores in the malls. Persistent loud noise can do it.
As for food, I avoid most highly processed food products. The artificial colorings and flavorings used in so many candies and drinks and prepared foods leave me with a 3 day migraine. When I avoid these things I don't get migraines.
While we can't avoid stress or noise, we should be able to expect that indoor and outdoor noise levels won't hurt our heads. Furthermore, no matter where we are indoors, it should be well ventilated with plenty of fresh air coming in. Sick building syndrome contributes immensely to my headaches and I'm sure it does to others as well.
The reason I don't take drugs is because they are too expensive even if I have insurance. And some of the drugs have coloring that makes me ill.
4
@hen3ry
hen3ry - this sounds a lot like me. I was diagnosed with multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome by an expert in this illness about 20 yrs ago. It was a rare diagnosis then but there are quite a few allergists who specialize in this now. When I was young I had to quit two jobs because the offices were in sealed enclosed buildings that got no fresh air.
I used to have migraines and vomiting if I smelled cleaning fluid, consumed food or medication with certain red and yellow dyes and was exposed to other chemicals.
Summers were the worst because I had migraine and vomiting if I smelled lighter fluid. Walking down the street and smelling lighter fluid from patios where people were barbecuing was a real problem.
I also have a life threatening allergy to iodine dyes that are used in radiology procedures. An allergist told me
that the fact I became sick after eating food or taking medication that contained red dyes was a warning I might have an allergy to iodine in radiology dye.
4
@fast/furious Thanks for your response to my comment. I had no idea that being so reactive to red dyes might indicate an allergy to iodine. I will keep that in mind.
1
I not only have had migraines for over 60 years, since the age of seven, I work on clinical trials for migraine medications. There are, sadly, few triptans approved for use in children. And parents often don't even think of migraine in children. I know my parents didn't.
When I was seven, NOTHING worked. For hours and hours. The pain was overwhelming, I had profuse diaphoresis, vomiting, shaking. As an intern I used to sit in the nurses' station while on call, vomiting into a trash can while my colleagues accused me of gold bricking.
Then, in 1993, sumatriptan was approved and it changed my life. Pharma companies don't do the clinical trials necessary for this life altering medication to be approved for children because the payoff isn't big enough. A big part of the problem is, as always, insurance coverage for this costly medication, which can be almost painlessly injected if vomiting is a problem (a drug won't work if it's vomited back up).
We need to change the profit incentive for both pharma and insurers and make health the primary motivator, rather than profit.
70
@BA :
agree so much! I too never had relief until Imitrex appeared on the market!
What we NEED in the U.S. is universal health coverage for all citizens, which every other developed nation in the world has. Why do we pay so much to further enrich Pharmaceutical CEO's and stockholders?
23
@BA I hear you. My mother didn't believe in medications either. And most people didn't think that children could have migraines when I was a child. I had one teacher in high school who was very understanding. She allowed me to go to the library when I had what I called a blinding headache. There were times when I thought I was going to lose my mind because of the pain. And I too was accused of being dramatic or trying to abuse drugs. I didn't act miserable enough because I'd learned how to function and smile when I was in pain.
I'm glad that there are meds out there that work. Now if only we had a real health care system that worked.
21
@RLiss
I think it has to do with their enormous profits at our expense. This allows them to bribe, er, lobby congress and have their way with us. If only they suffered these maladies on a daily or 10X/month, they would begin to understand.
4
I just started getting chronic migraines in my early 30's. I've tried magnesium, B2, CoQ10 and butterbur supplements to no avail. Currently I get some relief with a Cefaly dual device, which I highly recommend. And with Botox for migraine every 12 weeks and daily dose of Cymbalta. I will say Aimovig, despite the commercials that make it seem like a miracle drug, did not work for me at all. Like Jan's comment about her daughter - I'm going to try a low carb/low sugar diet to see if that helps.
2
@Liz Please look up the Stanton Migraine Protocol! I already commented above several times. It is a lifechanger and will help you implement the low carb/sugar along with a few other tweaks. I have gone from chronic migraine to virtually none. Good luck to you!
1
As someone who has suffered with migraines from the age of six I can relate to this article in a way many can’t.
I was on Amitriptyline for15 years. This antidepressant has been used for decades off label to help treat migraines, my dosage was adjusted up so many times to try to get relief. Sadly all this medication did for me was help me sleep, gain weight, and made me a zombie during the day.
Migraines run in my family unfortunately we do not “outgrow” them with puberty, they become a constant companion. Always waiting in the back of my head waiting for the most inconvenient time to strike.
Luckily Aimovig has helped lessen the intensity and duration of my migraines.
Weight gain is a major side effect with Amitriptyline. Please research all side effects before putting your children on a medication used off label.

10
@Matt
I took it for ten years and it was like magic...never went to the emergency room vomiting uncontrollably again. Once in a while a mild migraine that Imitrex and a nap would take care of just fine.
So, definitely be careful about what you get into as with any long term medication, but obviously results vary and people need to find what works for them.
1
@Matt None of the anti-CGRP antibody meds is approved for children. Thus nobody will prescribe because the uninsured cost is prohibitive. There's only ONE triptan approved for children. It's a travesty.
3
My teenage daughter suffered with migraines for 3 years. Opioids and other prescribed pain killers made things worse. After 4 days on a very low-carb and no-sugar diet, she was pain-free. And has remained pain free when she keeps the sugar and high carbs at bay. Her neurologist explained it reduces inflammation in the brain. Many other migraine patients have received similar relief.
32
Treating long-standing b12 and iron deficiencies made a massive difference in daily headache frequency and major migraine attacks. Medical records show that I was complaining of headaches and migraines in adolescence. They also showed a significant b12 deficiency that was never treated.
The fatigue and migraines eventually left me bedridden and forced me to drop out of college. It would take another six years to diagnose the issue. I got a late start on life because I was unable to hold a full time job.
You’d think that headache, extreme fatigue, depression, and the fact that I was a vegetarian would have tipped the doctors off earlier. It took dozens of doctors to finally diagnose and treat these things. Doctors that did run tests only looked at red blood cells and hemoglobin, not actual stored iron levels. Hemoglobin isn’t affected until someone has reached full blown anemia. Don’t let it get that far.
These deficiencies are seen in many vegetarians and vegans, but they can occur in anyone with an unbalanced diet. Parents, doctors, please test for these things if a child is suffering fatigue, depression, and/or headaches. I am furious that such a simple yet disabling problem stole my youth.
14
I am a neurologist and this news about the efficacy of placebos is very welcome! Pain has far more to do with cognition than with sensation, and it’s about time that medicine addressed pain as a cognitive issue. Placebos are incredibly powerful medications and we should learn how to use them more effectively.
8
@Ash Ranpura Why is a nutraceutical considered having a placebo effect? Placebo means something has no therapeutic value, but can't magnesium have a therapeutic value? Is getting enough sleep considered a placebo effect? Not discounting the placebo effect, but the reference to the placebo effect when using something other than drugs seems to imply that nothing other than a drug can have therapeutic value. I thought the placebo effect was taking something that has no value at all in reference to the problem being treated. Would taking vitamin C for scurvy be the placebo effect when it fixes the problem?
7
@Ash Ranpura
If you as a physician find "news" about placebos helpful in the treatment of migraines, I hope you aren't treating them. Please refer patients who have them to an internist or neurologist who won't patronize them. Diarrhea and vomiting until bile comes up, while simultaneously coping with a piercing, one-sided headache, won't respond to placebos. If this reads as angry, it's because I am.
2
@LC Actually, placebo doesn't mean something has no therapeutic value! It means that something triggers the brain and its secretions to heal itself. This is why it's a standard--can we find a medicine that is more responsive and efficient than our own chemistry, if hacked correctly? Check out a fascinating interview here: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/563-on-being-with-krista-tippe-28288089/episode/unedited-erik-vance-with-krista-tippett-49419179/
1
The writer does migraine patients a disservice by dismissing food triggers. The foods mentioned ( aged or fermented foods, chocolate) are well documented to cause migraines in some people. Aged and fermented foods contain tyramine which is the migraine trigger.
34
@Anita Larson Yes each individual should experiment to find their particular food triggers.
As for chocolate, I have found that I can eat it without a migraine. Surprise! For years I avoided it. For others maybe it is a trigger.
Although weren't them some studies recently that speculated that chocolate is not so much migraine trigger, but rather that chocolate craving was an early symptom of the oncoming migraine?
13
I noticed that too! Food is a huge migraine trigger for me and my son. Especially gluten and dairy.
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@Vlad My 14 year old daughter has suffered from migraines for years. When she feels one coming on, she asks specifically for chocolate because it seems to lessen the intensity of her pain. I had no idea that craving chocolate in the early stages of a migraine was typical, especially because I thought chocolate was supposed to be a trigger; I just assumed it was a peculiarity unique to my daughter's pain management.
Some children and to a lesser extent adolescents, experience this as “stomach migraine” and it is really no lesser than head centered migraine. Vomiting, extreme nausea can also be completely debilitating.
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@HB
Sometimes called atypical migraine... I had several incidences as an adult before someone figured it out in the third go-round in the ER. Asked me, do you feel better with the lights off?
@HB My daughter was diagnosed with Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome, a precursor to migraines, at the age of 3. She is pretty much guaranteed to start getting migraines after puberty, but the vomiting episodes themselves are so debilitating and clearly painful. Watching a 4-year-old spend all day Christmas hiding under the covers writhing in pain and vomiting once an hour is just heartbreaking.
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@Christine My daughter had exact same as your daughter, got abdominal migraines at 4, and head migraines at 9. Zofran worked amazingly well for the abdominal migraines, try it if you haven't already, it was a miracle for a my kid. Sadly, it only worked until she started getting the more typical migraines at age 9, it took us a while and more multifaceted approach to manage those.
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I got terrible headaches on and off as a kid and then as an adult for the last 15 years my frequent migraines became debilitating. I usually had a headache everyday and some so painful that I would land in bed about 3x per week. Imitrex helped but made me feel awful. The game changer: Emgality. One of three new preventative migraine medications on the market that inhibit a receptor in the brain involved in migraines. I believe it can be prescribed for children. The second game changer: Though I am small and do not look like the stereotype for someone with sleep apnea, I was recently diagnosed with it. With the treatment of a CPAP machine and the Emgality, I got my life back. Children can get treated for obstructed airway much easier than adults - through orthodontics. I highly recommend parents with children suffering from migraines to look into these options.
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I have used Depalept for many years to keep debilitating migraines at bay. Under extreme stress when it failed to work, I switched to a slow-release formula that has worked for me ever since. The decision to stay on the medication, was due to headaches called status migrainous that lasted over two weeks.
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My son started having migraines around the age of 12. His neurologist had him take co-q 10, and told us it was one of the few treatments studied in children and found to be highly effective. It worked for my son, almost eliminating his headaches.
(Which, yes, were related to stress he felt at school due to undiagnosed ADHD)
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I'm in my mid-50s and a combo of your grandson and you, having started migraines by Kindergarten and having them (all the kinds) intermittently throughout my life. As a pre-pubescent, I was prescribed a micro-dose of phenobarbital by my pediatrician and took this medication daily as what my mom refers to as 'an experimental protocol' from roughly age 8 until puberty. I did get a reprieve around early adolescence but was back to day's long 'sinus headaches' (as you described) by my late teens and throughout my 20s. I also seemed to have a reprieve in my 30's during pregnancies and extended breastfeeding, but migraines began ramping up for me again in 40s as a I entered pre-menopause, for a period intense enough to deal with the side effects of the triptans. These days I have two or three a month on average, with significant air pressure changes seeming the most reliably notable trigger. My approach to management these days is definitely low intervention, low tech, I ease the pain by getting vertical, caffeine, low lights, OTC migraine headache meds, quiet, warm compresses, and a recent addition, a large-headed vibrator (not that kind!) with a soft cover worked around eyes, across my forehead and cheeks. Migraines are just a part of me. Gratefully, neither of my kiddos have them.
Anyone of my era a prescriber or patient of the phenobarb regimen? I've tried to corroborate my mom's story without success to date. ;)
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@Tee
I was on phenobarbital in elementary school, roughly same era, likely for both migraine as well as intermittent seizures--I don't think my dose was particularly micro though, and I enjoyed not being fully present in a school that was horrible for me. One it wore off early afternoon, I biked and ran and swam and played in the woods!
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Really? Topamax ? At my house we call it stupimax. I get migraines regularly and have tried every possible prevention... with no success. Topamax inhibits thinking. How will children do school work ? There is also a theory that this drug increases the likelihood of dementia. Imitrex and the cousins in the triptan family have allowed me to function much better than ANY of the preventive medicines, including biofeedback, acupuncture ,botox etc.
Lisa Lockwood Sparkill NY
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@Paul S. I have suffered visual aura migraine since age 11 with headache and projectile vomiting about twice a month until my 20's. The visual aura stuff continued without the pain and n/v, but I would still get them 3-4 times a month.They increased about 4x a week in my 50's. Out of it for 3-4 hours each time.Started on Topamax 10 years ago. Cut down on my migraines to 1 about every 3 months and even that is less severe.I am now 70. My side effects from Topamax are none. Nothing else I tried touched my visual aura migraines including all you mentioned. A miracle drug for me. Gave me my life.Important to find what works for you.
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@Susan
I too have suffered serious visual aura migraine with unilateral numbness to my face along with pain and gi symptoms since adolescence, now I am 61. The only drug that has worked for me is Topamax, a very low dose...instead of 2-10 migraines a week I now get one or two evry few months. I am an acute care nurse for over 30 years who cannot go and lie down once a migraine hits. My patients are worse off than me. Topamax has changed my life.
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@Paul S.
Topamax works for me. Initially upon starting it, I would get into my car and then pull over, wondering where I was going. But this soon passed. The number of migraines is markedly down. It may not work for you, but don't trash it for everyone.
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Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B Family at the Pharmacy) taken with equal amounts of Vitamin C Permanantly Cured my Migraines in my early 30's. I only did this treatment once. I don't remember the dosage, but equal amounts of Pantothenic Acid and Vitamin C worked for me! I suffered with Migraine Headaches two to three times a month from age three until I did this. I have been headache free since! No person should have to suffer with that kind of pain!
James Lamb, Tulsa, Oklahoma age 58.
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My 6th grade daughter began having migraines this year with numbness in her face, head, left arm and visual disturbances. it's very upsetting, especially when it happens at school. Over the summer we sought treatment and an MRI was done, allaying fears that anything more serious was going on. Also, vitamin B-2 and magnesium were prescribed. She has not had any further headaches or ocular migraines since summer. She has been active in sports this fall as well. Thanks for this article. Good stuff.
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@Kinney
Good luck! My daughter had visual disturbances at age 10: flashing lights, then temporary blindness. Some of her cousins had had retinal detachment and we were sure that was happening, but her retinas were fine. The doc said it was migraine. Then came the classic headache, complete with wanting to lie in the dark with a cold cloth on her head. We closely controlled what she was eating - NO processed food of any kind - and this all stopped. Until puberty. So watch out! She went on a beta blocker, Nadolol, for a while, and they kept the migraines knocked down mostly. Zomig helped when one broke through. Now in her early thirties, she gets one each month and it is manageable with OTC medication.
Best to you and your daughter.
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I started getting migraines at the age of 16. They lasted 3 days and I would be in bed most of the day, to escape from the misery. Imitrex came along and thought it was a miracle drug. After many years, I realized that my headaches were worse in September. I thought possibly that change in weather and air pressure contributed. I started using CBD for ulnar nerve pain and after 3 months of using it, I realized I wasn’t getting migraines. 3 years later, I haven’t had one migraine! Feeling great!
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@Dan M Mine are the worst in August and September. They can become a nearly daily occurrence. Those are kind of lost months for me. I assume it's the East Coast weather of that time, air pressure, humidity? I've noticed Restless Legs is worst around that time of year also, so bad sleep quality also worsens the migraines.
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@Dan M
Ragweed? Other pollens?
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No allergies
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