Coping with back to school migraines - news article

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Ali Gorman, R.N.

September 25, 2011 (WPVI) -- Children and teenagers bring a lot of things back to school and for one in ten kids that includes migraines.

Headaches plagued Ania Swinarski during high school, and then followed her into college.

"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,'" said Swinarski.

Her quest for help brought her to headache specialist Dr. Noah Rosen, who says the teenage years are prime time for migraines.

When kids have to deal with migraines plus school, that means 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.
Dr. Rosen is leading a campaign for the American Migraine Foundation to make students and educators more "migraine aware."

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/health&id=8367090

My daughter regularly misses school due to HMs, however, she never gets them any other time. We know she's not feigning them because of the acute symptoms and she says she loves school and has no worries. We just don't understand it. Is there anyone else out there who has the same circumstances?

My son has had them at school - I am not 100% sure how we solved it as we did loads of things at the same time.... I went into school and talked it over with them........ we looked at his class room and he was sat direct under a strip light - so I had him moved to a better place in the class, near natural light. He is also allowed to wear his dark glasses in class, have water on his desk and eat a snack to keep his blood sugar balanced. They know as soon as he sees the dots they have to call me.

Do you know any of her triggers - there is obviously something at the school which is triggering it - is it always in the same room?

Do not panic over this list - it is very long - but it may give you some ideas what could be a trigger.... https://migrainetalk.forumotion.co.uk/t330-types-of-triggers

Tee