Migraine disease in children

In headaches in children, headaches due to vasomotor disorders are migraine quite common, especially in school-aged children, girls are more likely than boys. The disease is family-like and often manifests localized on one side of the head, cyclical changes with diverse clinical symptoms.

Reason

Baby girl with migraine headache
(Photo: nowleap)

The source of migraine is due to a disorder of the elasticity of cerebral vessels, but the cause of vasodilation is still unclear. It is only seen that some favorable factors are those that usually start around puberty and are family-like, often with a mother with Migraine.

Besides the menstrual cycle (in girls) and psychological and emotional factors also affect the progression of the disease. In addition, a number of other factors, such as foods containing tyramine and phenylethylamine (which are high in cow's milk, eggs, fomat, chocolate-causing allergens . also cause migraine headaches.

Common migraine headache

The disease usually starts after a strenuous activity, after an infection or eating some foods such as cow's milk, eggs, chocolate . Particularly in girls who are sick or appear before menstruation. Usually before the headache from a few hours to a few days children change their temper, tired, poor appetite and headaches appear.

The pain is suddenly severe, the location of the initial pain is usually on the forehead on one side, sometimes both sides then spread to the first or the whole head. In the pain of youthful pale face, cold skin, the child felt like the temple was tense, the pulse in the temple's temples was strongly accompanied by a feeling of lightheadedness, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain in the epigastric region. Besides, many pediatric patients still see dizziness and there are sparkling light veins running in front of their eyes but these visual disturbances appear only 10-20 minutes before it expires.

Another characteristic is that children have more headaches when exerting themselves, when exposed to strong light and noise, pain subsides when resting, so the child shows signs of fear of light and demands to be alone in the dark, I want to let others touch me. At this time, if the child can sleep, the headache can be shortened and when woke up the headache will go away, the body will return to normal, however in some children after waking up there is still a slight headache and fatigue pull It wasn't until the next day. The last characteristic is that these headaches last from one to several hours in addition to the completely normal child and the number of recurring episodes varies from patient to patient.

Other forms of Migraine disease

Migraine of the basal artery

Electroencephalography (EEG) for patients (Photo: itic.org.ge) Meeting with girls during puberty and menstruation, especially those with a family history of having a mother also have migraines. The disease begins with bilateral visual disturbances such as a haunting point, decreased visual acuity, blurred vision, even loss of vision in both eyes, in addition some children with sensory disorders, speech difficulties, dizziness, confusion awareness. All these disorders appear before the headache a few minutes to half an hour and then disappear as soon as the headache appears, pain in the occipital region accompanied by nausea and vomiting.

Migraine hemiplegia

Sudden child paralysis and sensory disorder in half of the body, paralysis in the legs is heavier in the legs but not face paralysis. Accompanied by hemiplegia is the opposite migraine side with paralysis. These symptoms only occur within a few hours and then completely go away without leaving sequelae.

Abdominal Migraine

Suddenly, the child had severe abdominal pain in the epigastric region, around the navel, accompanied by feeling of nausea and vomiting, away from loose stools, the child had a headache but was very discreet, these symptoms usually only occurred within a few hours. all are confused, however, can be relapsed many times, causing parents to worry and take the child to go for digestive and surgical examination to do all kinds of tests, but do not detect any disease, because most doctors and fathers Young mothers only pay attention to symptoms of abdominal pain without asking if the child has a headache.

In summary, the symptoms of migraine headaches are very rich so it is easy to confuse with abdominal diseases such as appendicitis, stomach pain and diseases of the nervous system such as epilepsy, cerebral hemorrhage, brain tumors, etc. Examine carefully, especially neurological examination, in addition to do some more tests such as abdominal ultrasound, electroencephalography of the skull X-ray . Particularly with electroencephalography there are many cases of Migraine manifesting electric waves like dynamic Therefore, it is necessary to do so many times to eliminate the above diseases.

Treatment

Symptomatic treatment with non-steroide analgesics such as Aspirine, Paracetamol, Voltaren combined with quiet rest, if not supported, can cut ergotamine derivative headache such as Migwell, Gynergen. Prophylactic ergotamine treatment with at least 3 episodes per month is recommended, as well as serotonin (Desernil), calcium blockers (Sibelium) and beta-blockers (Propranolol ). Note to limit certain foods that can cause headaches such as chocolate, cow's milk, eggs, cheese.

Doctor NGUYEN THE ANH