Be Careful About Your Child’s Headache!
It is believed that 5 out of 100 schoolchildren are migraineurs. So parents should take it seriously when their child complains about a headache.
Children get headaches too. In fact, they can even be migraineurs. But they tend to whine instead of looking for a dark, quiet place like us.
Neurologist Dr. Emel Gokmen explains that the biggest problem with these children is the difficulty of diagnosis and says: “As a physician, dealing mostly with migraine, I have seen that most adult migraineurs had this problem as a child as well. But patients only describe the usual attacks they have as adults. Only when I ask about their history, they tell that during their childhood, they had headaches and sometimes nausea-vomiting accompanied it. But they are not aware of the fact that these things were also part of their migraine attacks.”
Migraineur Since She Was 4
Dr. Gokmen, claiming that she too had met migraine while she was young, remembers that the doctor they called when she had vomiting attacks 3-4 times a year, had told that she was suffering from gastrointestinal problems. Dr. Emel Gokmen, realizing she has migraine when she became doctor says: “Only when I began specializing in neurology, I realized that I had childhood migraine since I was 4. Migraineurs know how hard it is. That is why I feel even worse when I think about those kids who could not get any treatment because their migraine could not be detected due to their inability to describe their symptoms. Studies show that 5 out of 100 school children are suffering from migraine. A child patient of mine had told me that his mother realized that he had migraine because she was a migraineur too. When my patient told he was having headaches, her mother took him to a child neurologist. A friend of his, was having a headache at the school and was crying in a corner. He had asked his friends to keep quiet but no one had listened to him. Another child patient once told me that when he was having a headache, his migraineur teacher could tell just by looking at him and sent him home.”
Dr. Gokmen, saying “You do not need to be a migraineur mother or teacher to realize childhood migraine. You just have to take their headaches seriously,” continues: “You should not think that they are using headaches as an excuse to avoid doing their homework or something else they do not want to do. Children are unable to understand or describe what they are going through. Here, the most important thing to be careful about is the unwillingness of the child. They do not want to watch TV, play games on their computer etc. Even if they cannot describe it, light and noise disturb them. They cannot play active games but they do not want to sleep in a dark room like adults either. They just want to whine and be with their mother.”
Symptoms
According to Dr. Gokmen, highlighting the fact that headache is not a dominant symptom in children, migraine shows itself mostly as vomiting, stomachache, dizziness, fatigue, lack of appetite, rarely increased appetite and keeping away from noisy places. Also, sometimes it can show itself as just persistent stomachache or nausea. You can visit www.emelgokmen.com for further information about migraine and childhood migraine, just like you can call +90 212 343 6666.
CUMHURIYET NEWSPAPER, MARCH 2008