Migraines make school extra challenging for young people

Migraines are awful for adults, let alone kids. For some young people, heading back to school can mean heading back to a painful problem.

Headaches plagued Ania Swinarski during high school and then followed her into college. She says, "it took me a while to realize they weren't regular headaches. It wasn't until my 35-hour migraine that I was like, 'I don't know what this is, but I need to see a specialist.'"

Her quest for help brought her to headache specialist Noah Rosen, who says teen years are prime time for migraine. And when kids have to deal with migraines plus school, that doubles the trouble. "A lot of them are told that they're just missing time because they don't want to be in school, or they're using it as an excuse, while a lot of them have to work twice as hard to make up for the problem," said Dr. Rosen.

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Dr. Rosen is heading up a campaign for the American Migraine Foundation to make students, and educators, more 'migraine aware.' According to Dr. Rosen, "a lot of people, if they don't suffer from migraine themselves, don't understand what's going on in individuals. And that can be teachers, it can be principals, it can even be the school nurse."

The campaign will include a variety of materials, geared at educating all of them. "It incorporates a number of things including power point presentations, tear-off materials, headache calendars," said Dr. Rosen.

Ania thinks she could have benefited from greater awareness early on. She says, "first of all I would have known what I had, and known that I should seek help to begin with, which would have avoided, you know, having a 35-hour migraine. And it also would have, you know, prevented me from getting so worried."

The power of education to help kids handle migraines. Materials for this program are available online at http://www.americanmigrainefoundation.org/ Click on the "resources" tab.

http://www.ky3.com/news/ky3-migraines-make-school-extra-challenging-for-young-people-20110810,0,3618025.story