Horrible phone call with school😭

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow Children can take topiramate. I'm not saying it would necessarily be the correct preventer for your DD, but pizotifen is not the only option. Hence why I recommend seeing a specialist who can explore all the safe treatment choices with her x

I haven't seen the OP post who she spoke to at the school, which surely makes a big difference! Office staff - head of year - history teacher etc.
Having the call with dd in the room, on speaker, was a bad move and could have easily been avoided.
I am sure it will all be sorted out, on the day itself their priority is going to be getting kids in to the exams. Special circumstances can be looked at afterwards.

@Cannotstandthisheat but the issue is some describe a headache as a migraine
Luckily I have never had migrains just bad headaches very occasionally
My dh suffers migraines and its a vast different, but i have been at wprk when someone says i have a migraine , then take some paracetamol and couple hrs are fine , so unlikely a migraine but that is how they describe it
Migraines seem beyond awful

@Cannotstandthisheat I think OP did absolutely the right thing for her DD.

However - I have a very severe case of chronic migraine, and, yes, I have sat exams with a migraine before. That's not to say I haven't had some days where I wouldn't have been able to, but the nature of my condition is such that I didn't have any pain free days at all until I began medical Botox last year.

So it's not black and white, and you can't assume people don't have experience with migraine just because they might think it is possible to do an exam with one. That said, clearly OP's daughter isn't well enough, so it's irrelevant to the thread overall.

Well I wrote a nice long post and then bumped the computer and lost it.

Just wanted to say as a former migraine sufferer and current anxiety sufferer, I feel for your DD.

Obviously she can't go and sit the exam so just advocate for her at school the best your can.

The good thing is she has the diagnosis so she can build her toolbox to handle it. I hope she has a good therapist to work with.

I think they purely ran through options as thats what they have to do as not every case is clear cut
Also they may not know what the board will do as evidence has to be sent in etc

OP, as a former migraine sufferer I sympathise with your daughter. Of course your loyalties lie with her but your anger with the school is helping no-one.

You will know from friends who are still in schools that this has been the worst exam season any of us can remember for student absence, ill health, and anxiety. We've never had to complete so many special considerations. You will not be the only parent that the HOY had to call this morning and they will have had to make multiple calls every day to get students in under extreme pressure of time. In some cases the students can come in with a bit of a pep talk and it's not unreasonable for them to ask the question.

Does she hope to stay on for sixth form?

It’s not up to the school to have an opinion about illnesses or how serious they are. You’ve said your DD can’t do her exam (supporting this with medical evidence) and that’s all they need to know. Of course they won’t be ‘keen’ for her to miss an exam, but that’s not really the important thing here - your DD’s wellbeing is.

Everyone who is saying the school was right, have you ever had a chronic migraine before? I'm assuming not. My last one ended up with me in A&E throwing up every 30 minutes, super sensitive to light and sound. I couldnt bare to have my eyes open for a second, I had a blind fold covering then for the whole 12 hours I was in A&E.
The episode didn't start of this bad, but slowly got worse and worse as I was trying to work through it.

There is quite literally no chance I would be able to sit an exam with a migraine, you can barely think due to the pain, so how on earth are you supposed to read and answer questions correctly??

OP I hope your daughter gets a chance to resit when she is feeling better x

As a secondary school teacher of nearly 3 decades surely you know this is challenging when there are a tonne of pupils, also what a waste of the GPs time to be writing several notes over the space of a few weeks.

I've found if I take it a bit later there's more chance I'll need a 2nd dosage but works wonders. Though I have heard some people say it doesn't work for them past a certain point which is a shame.

Why would the school be familiar with her migraines if they started a few days before exams started, ergo very recently? I suspect this is more anxiety driven and they think it's a shame she'll be at the mercy of exam boards for her grade when she probably would have done well.

Surely if you’ve got a DR notes it’s a case of exceptional circumstances and she’d get her predicted grade?

a few of my friends ended up in that situation

Hi OP

Just wanted to offer some sympathy and to reiterate the posters who said missing an exam isn’t actually the end of the world - even though it might seem like it. Not ideal but there are resits ( which you generally don’t even have to disclose), and it’s all makes me. I hope your DD recovers and can get some help with her anxiety, and that the pressure lifts from her.

i have a child with SEN ( including anxiety) and have had numerous conversations with the school where they appear to think both myself and the paediatrician are - not sure what - lying? Exaggerating? So I totally get where you are coming from on the conversation and how upsetting it can be. I have come to see the education system in a very different light having experienced it with a child with SEN ( I also have a NT child and it’s astonishing the different assumptions that are made).

Schools should not assume there is a whole bunch of parents and children out there lying, particularly after the last few years. It’s a horrible and tbh arrogant attitude ( and not one all schools take towards parents).

@curlyLJ that's a good call - a friend of mine uses Curable for dealing with trigeminal neuralgia, and I understand it's helped enormously.
Thank you for the reminder!

Pizotifen is quite an outdated med - I was on that in the 90s and my migraine specialist (who is one of the best in the country) has been very sniffy about it. If you possibly can manage it, take her to see a private specialist ASAP.

I have chronic migraine, daily pain from childhood and have been on all sorts of meds for it. Now doing medical Botox as well as the 'ordinary' meds. It is a treatable condition but better to be as aggressive as possible and not lose time to pain.

Contrary to what some are saying on the thread, it is sometimes possible to push through migraine. Not as black and white as people are claiming! But I completely agree you did the right thing; only stating this for clarity x

Hi OP, it sounds like you are doing everything you can for your DD and as pp said, if she is too ill, she is too ill. So now its a question of waiting to see what happens and trying not to worry too much about worst-case scenarios. The best thing you can do for her now is stay as calm as possible, reassure her that you will sort it out and all will be well, even if you have to bite your tongue.

You didn't say who you spoke to at school and whether they were actually in a position to advise. It sounded to me like they didn't have enough authority or knowledge to advise you and were just towing the general party line.

Her History teacher will know it's her favourite subject and that she wanted to do A level.
Even if the exam board doesn't take this into consideration which is unlikely as you do have evidence, her sixth form will.
Many people have injury/illness that affects their exam day performance. (two of my DC had sporting injuries - metal plate in wrist GCSE and broken finger A Level) and these were taken into consideration.
You've reported it all to the GP who already has records of seeing her and will have records today.
Don't forget schools have had to make exam predictions based on attendance and previous performance and they can do this now, and they will have had to keep records to allow them to do this in case there's another emergency.

Is she staying at that school or looking for a sixth form college. If all her other GCSEs are reasonable, that is also a predictor for her ability to do history A level, for example if she's done ok in other essay writing subjects. All she has to do is to be allowed to get onto the A Level course and with support from her school records and other exams so making an appointment to talk to them

In my experience, sixth forms are eager to recruit high-performing students and woo them away from other schools and if a blip on her history GCSE due to proven illness makes her existing school turn her down, there will be others more than ready to take her on. It's worth making some calls before the end of term.

You are seeing the situation from your point of view and the school is seeing it from theirs. They were only outlining the various options.

They won't be keen for your daughter to miss an exam after all the years of studying for it.

A history exam isn't seen as being as vital as maths and English, so she would be fine without it.

I'm a secondary school teacher too. I find that some schools have a culture of "exam blinkers" around this time of year. All senior staff can think about is bums on seats in the exam hall and churning out the grades.

I expect a combination of that and the way some people claim to have a migraine when they have a bit of a headache has led to the school's response. I had migraines as a teenager, including ones which caused hemiplegia. I looked like I'd had a stroke but some people still liked to recommend a paracetamol! Luckily I gradually grew out of them in my 20s.

In the circumstances, school sounds pretty shitty

No worries! The reason I always reply to posts like that is because these kind of repeated myths have real world consequences for people with migraine that disproportinately affect women.

I.e., passed over for a promotion, not given the same opportunities at work as others ("wouldn't want to stress X out, she gets migraine you know"), your xyz symptoms must just be because you get migraine, don't need to investigate them etc.

People not getting proper support and treatment because they're told relaxing and stress relief will make an underlying genetic disorder go away.

Top tip is that if you wouldn't say it about type 1 diabetes (for example), don't say it about migraine. OF COURSE managing anxiety and stress will help any chronic disease, but it won't make it disappear

OP, I'm so sorry for your daughter. This will all be adding to her stress now too. Hoping the school/exam board do the right thing and it all gets resolved.

If she's aware these migraines are brought on by stress, can I suggest getting her to download an app called Curable? I've used it to help with chronic back pain, but there are loads of success stories within the app from people who have adopted some of the strategies for migraines.

I'm speaking as a migraine sufferer and I am baffled you would continue to say "it is a fact" when I've just posted two systematic reviews that say the cause-effect between migraine and anxiety is not fully understood. Weird.

Leaving aside that the OP herself has repeatedly explained that her daughter's migraines ARE brought on by stress and anxiety.