Migraine in children
May 1, 2006 7:26 am
I was a young boy in elementary school when I decided to capture a moment by writing a few things about it on my rule. Here's what I wrote:
It's December 21
I'm at school taking up Math
I've got a headache
It's 4 days 'till Christmas
It's Fri, last day of school
I'm chewing gum
It's 10:16
4 minutes to recess
I feel sick
Now other considerations aside, it's interesting to notice that it looks suspiciously like I had some kind of "sick headache". Now my best guess was always that my migraine attacks started when I was in my teenaged years, but who knows? Maybe it was earlier.
How young can children get migraine symptoms? The fact is, we don't know for sure. We do know that they seem to have migraine symptoms just about as soon as they can tell us about it (though not everyone with migraine first had it as a child). We don't have a full understanding of how infants understand pain, because they can't explain it to us. But it seems likely that even infants may indeed have some experience with migraine. This may make it trickier to diagnose, since many people think of it as "normal".
Find out about headaches and migraine in children in these articles
Mommy, fix it! When child headache strikes...Dealing with child migraines?Abdominal migraine (typical of children)
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Estrogen and migraine
May 4, 2006 7:50 am
Dr. Jan Lewis Brandes of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, recently did a survey of journal articles about the role of estrogen in migraine. She discovered, of course, that changes in estrogen levels does indeed play a big part in migraine attacks.
As The Daily Headache pointed out, this is really stating the obvious! Then again, there really are people that aren't aware of this or simply don't know much about it. Also, as Kerrie at the above link points out, anything that puts this information out into the medical forum is likely to help promote more research.
What specifically did the study discover? Well, the most obvious things are that migraine attacks are much more prevalent in women, and they change dramatically (generally) at different phases of life for those women. The study also found that menstrual migraines are more resistant to treatment, last longer and seem to be more debilitating than attacks at other times of the month. Estrogen seems to be a major factor, though not the only factor. It's interaction with other functions in the body may explain part of what's going on.
Finally, research still isn't clear how estrogen therapies may help fight migraine. There has been success with triptan drugs, however.
More on hormonal headache.
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Cluster Conventions
May 11, 2006 8:57 pm
If you're in the United States, you have your choice of two cluster headache conventions this summer (or you can attend parts of both). O.U.C.H. (Organization for Understanding Cluster Headaches) is having it conference on 13-16 July 2006 in Waukesha, WI (just outside of Milwaukee). They have not yet announced all their speakers, but Dr. Andrew Sewell and Dr. John Halpern, both of Harvard Medical School.
ClusterBusters will be holding its first annual convention on July 15-17 in Lisle, IL. Drs Sewell and Halpern will be travelling to speak at this one as well. Also speaking will be researcher and author James Joseph. More speakers will be announced.
For more on the conventions, visit O.U.C.H.'s convention page and ClusterBuster's convention page. Thanks to Teri Robert for pointing these out.
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Is Melatonin a help?
May 12, 2006 9:30 pm
The current issue of TIME Magazine has an article titled Sleep All Day! all about Melatonin, by Sora Song. Apparently, recent studies have shown that melatonin is of dubious benefit at night, but of more benefit during the day.
In other words, if you want to sleep during the day, melatonin may help. The reason is that melatonin is naturally released by your body at night, so the extra doesn't seem to help. During the day, however, your body doesn't create the melatonin, so the supplement helped.
Now I've mentioned here before that melatonin may be helpful for migraineurs. Now the evidence really is slim on melatonin in general, but before you give up on the idea, consider this. If you suffer from migraine, your body may not be producing melatonin normally in the first place. That's because melatonin is part of the serotonin chain reaction, and serotonin levels have long been linked to migraine.
If it only helps you sleep better, you may find it's worth it. Getting a good 8 hours' sleep, with some before midnight, is going to help you cope better and will probably improve your migraine situation. It's unclear if there are other reasons why melatonin helps the migraine sufferer. You might even consider trying it temporarily if it seems your migraine attacks have spun out of control. Be sure to check with your doctor. Melatonin has also been studied as a help to tension and cluster headache patients.
It also seems that a little melatonin is all you need. The study mentioned in TIME said that 0.3mg was as good as 5mg. The migraine study used 3mg, and it's often sold in 3mg tablets. I've recommended Drugstore.com's Nature's Bounty Natural Melatonin, but amazon.com also sells Twin Labs melatonin (though it's a little more expensive per dose, not considering shipping). It's becoming more available locally, just be sure to chose a brand you trust.
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Spring cleaning and new features!
May 23, 2006 7:52 am
There's been a lot of "spring cleaning" going on here at Relieve-Migraine-Headache.com! If you've visited the site lately, you've noticed a new look, bringing the site up to date. There's a new site map, another way to find the dozens and dozens of articles on the site. As the newly updated home page says, there are now well over 140 pages of free information here. Of course, doing a search always works well.
There are also a growing number of features that allow you to share your knowledge and experience. Comments are of course enabled here. And there's the recently added Reader's Choice Awards, where you can vote for books you've found helpful.
But now there's the Community Question section. Actually, it's soon to become a Community Answer. This is the place where you can answer questions about fighting headache and migraine. The best answers will be turned into a series of articles by you and for you, on a variety of topics. Why not stop by right now and tell us what you think? The first question has already been posted...
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The UK approves Over the Counter Triptan
May 26, 2006 8:13 am
A version of the drug sumatriptan, called Imigran Recovery, is now available without a prescription in the UK. There have been rumblings for a while that this would happen, and now the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has given the go ahead for the drug to be sold over the counter. It will be available starting in mid-June.
There have been a few reasons to hope that drugs like this would be made more available. For one thing, some research shows that taking the drug earlier has a better chance of stopping the attack. Eliminating the visit to the doctor enables people to get relief fast, before the symptoms really balloon out of control. Some patients find their doctors reluctant to prescribe the drug, which means more delays.
As with any move to make a drug more available, this means more freedom and responsibility for the patient. Some have expressed concern that they wanted advice from a doctor, not just a pharmacist. A survey was done of members of the Migraine Action Association (MAA), and 51 percent approved of the new ruling, but 39 percent were against it. The bottom line for most of us is that we need to continue to be personally educated, we need to talk to our doctors at appropriate times, and use drugs like this responsibly. This is probably only the first of many drugs like this that will be made more available.
Read the MAA's survey, and some of the comments members made about the debate.
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World Cup migraine fears
May 31, 2006 7:13 am
There have been many people throughout history with migraine that have been very successful. But that hasn't cured them of the fear of an attack at a critical moment.
Just ask Freddie Ljungberg, a major force on the Swedish team heading to the World Cup. On his way to Germany for the event beginning in June, he wonders what impact his migraine attacks may have on his World Cup dreams.
Ljungberg's attacks are rare, but so bad that he can't play when he has one. With a lot of games scheduled in a short period of time, a slight disadvantage could knock out a team in the early stages. There are some warning signs, some things he can do to cut down the likelyhood of an attack. But as we all know, migraine is very unpredictable. He's been to all kinds of doctors and other practitioners, but the problem remains. The only good news is that he hasn't had a problem with stress triggering an attack. But when an attack comes, Ljungberg says, it's 10 days before he's back to normal
As you watch Sweden play, remember how mercilessly unpredictable migraine can be, even for successful athletes with the best care.
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