If anyone can diagnose whats wrong with dd, i will love you forever

[TheOriginalNutcracker]

Cos she is driving me nuts.

She is 13, and for the past few weeks on and off she has suffered with nausea. This has ranged from a slight sicky feeling to, sitting infront of the loo convinced she is going to vomit. She hasn't actually been sick.

Then on Saturday she developed a headache. It started at the back of her head, and was apparently the worst she'd ever had. Her head also hurt to touch in the same place. Painkillers did nothing.

She has also been off her food, irritable and complained of dizziness a couple of times, and had trouble sleeping.

The headache the moved to the front of her head, and still very painful.

I took her to the gp on Tuesday, and he gave her a very thorough examination but couldnt find anything wrong. He advised an eye test (which i'd already booked for the same day), and to alternate paracetamol and ibuprofen every 2 hours. He wants to see her again on Friday.

Eye test revealed a slight short sightedness and so she is getting glasses, but the optician advised to see gp again if headache doesn't go.

She's been taking the painkillers as advised, but the headache still isn't going. It does ease a bit, but keeps coming back, and she is still getting the nausea on and off too.

Any ideas ??

[TheOriginalNutcracker]

Hmm she did have Post viral fatigue syndrome when she was 3. She'd had a bad bout of pneumonia just before she was two, followed by chicken pox etc and she was just completely washed out and so tired she'd drift off at nursery.

Thinking about it, this is quite similar, apart from the fact that she's not recently been ill.

[thixotropic]

I had something very similar at that age. I now suffer with migraines. I also started wearing glasses around then.

Looking back I think for me it was hormonal migraine, with additional triggers of eye strain, exam stress and dips in blood sugar all confusing the issue.

Triptans - request the doc tries her on them- will soon tell you if it's migraine. They are not painkillers, only a migraine cure, so if they work, it can only be migraine.

[aliasjoey]

I was surprised at the suggestion of UTI as she has no symptoms like that. I think we are going to have her eyes tested and rule that out.

otherwise we're back to migraines/hormones/virus. this evening she just burst into tears for almost no reason

hope you figure yours out soon!

[Reaa]

Is she dizzy?

[Reaa]

Just read through again and you already said that. Can you take her to an out of hours dr tonight?

[fieldfare]

They sound like migraine attacks.
I had these around when I started my periods 11-12 and had to take long term medication for about 6 months as a preventative thing. They stopped for a few years and began again when I was 19 after a car accident but presented differently.
I take sumatriptan now for my migraines and they work very differently to painkillers, and a standard paracetamol or ibuprofen would not even touch the pain or associated symptoms.
An OTC medicine called Motilium works great for my nausea, if I take a sumatriptan and some strong painkillers within 20 mins of the first visual disturbance I can head it off. If not, I'm stuck with managing it for the rest of the day until I can sleep.

Your poor dd to be having these so young, it could be hormone linked. Maybe encourage her to keep a note of when they're worst and details of her periods too. Something to help level out her hormones might help, a good B vit supplement and evening primrose oil?

[toffeelolly]

Is she eating her meal's often, not skipping meal's ?

[FrustratedSycamoresRocks]

I have an intolerance to paracetamol based pain killers. It causes tension(stress) headaches term used to describe the type of headache rather than the cause and migranes.
I was diagnosed with chronic daily headaches cop-out diagnosis from about 14 until I was 18 when a random stranger told me to stop taking the paracetamol very random and a bit woo

I find putting something cold (ice) on the back of the neck where the headache starts helps.

[Bearandcub]

Dehydrated?

[babySophieRose]

Did she has had head injury recently? The symptoms are a match?
www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Head-injury-minor/Pages/Symptoms.aspx

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

babySophieRose: the OP said the symptoms have been going on for weeks though.

[babySophieRose]

ThreeBee, I can read, Thank you. As you can read too, the symptoms my go on for months. Sometime kids do not bother to remember a fall or a bump...
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-concussion_syndrome#section_1

[zipzap]

has she grown signficantly recently?

A friend's dd has had something similar to this and they tested her for all sorts of things. In the end they worked out she'd grown something like 8-9 inches in a year and that effectively her muscles hadn't grown as quickly as her skeleton had, so her muscles were always at full stretch, they never got a chance to relax, thus causing her the pain and the migraines.

She had physio to help ease the muscles and it seemed to help with the migraines. And had to tweak her diet to make sure it was laden with things that would help her to build muscle (but to make sure they caught up with her skeleton rather than bulk them up iyswim)

Apparently chiropodists can help with migraines too if you've tried everything else - if she is standing badly or has one leg slightly longer than the other for example, then the rest of the body shifts a bit to compensate , ending up with the jaw, neck and head all tensed and causing pain. Sorting out the standing properly means the muscles and skeleton can realign properly and then the tension is reduced and goes and with it the migraines disappear...

hope you manage to get it diagnosed soon...

[NoPartyDay]

Get a 2nd opinion in the morning if necessary/ request referral to specialist for nausea/loss of appetite/irritability/dizziness/severe headaches.
A few weeks of symptoms worsening is a long time for her to suffer
Hope you can find relief for her and the cause soon

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

babySophieRose: there's no need to be unpleasant. I think that suggesting the OP's daughter might have a traumatic brain injury is alarmist and unnecessary. Which medical school did you go to?

[megandraper]

babySophie wasn't being unpleasant! She was just asking. No-one on the web knows what OP's daughter has, people are just suggesting things for the OP to check.

If it did turn out that OP's daughter had a (even seemingly minor) head injury a little while go, then this would be very important to check out.

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

If she had, then the signs would have been spotted in the "very thorough examination" done by the GP, surely?

[larrygrylls]

Are the headaches worse in the morning? Headaches, nausea and dizziness point to ears or neurological. Of course, it could be migraines but it could be other things which I would want ruled out.

I would ask for an urgent referral to a neurologist given how long it has been going on and the severity of the symptoms.

[megandraper]

ThreeBee - one would hope so, but should never rule things out! If the thorough examination didn't miss anything out, then there's nothing wrong with OP's DD, but clearly she is worried that there might be.

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

bedhopper: you're right, and babySophieRose: I apologise. Sometimes it's difficult to interpret tone from text on a screen, so I probably inferred more sarkiness than was actually implied. Either way, my reply was unnecessarily harsh and I'm sorry.

Back to the reason we're here, I agree that a neurology referral seems appropriate now, and/or an ENT check-up.

[cestlavielife]

is she able to go to school?
is she fine in between attacks? (if yes then possibly migraine route)

my dd has had nausea and dizziness since june- working non-diagnosis fo CFS but she doesnt quite fit...we have been down vestibular/ENt route - not conclusive... but a useful route to go down. they can do specific vestibualr tests to see if is inner ear.

Gp can order slew of blood tests to look at iron levels, infections etc.

refer to paediatrician if carries on.

pead can refer to neurologist

dd has had MRI which has thown up some structural anomalies which prob have always been there; scans have been reviewed by neurosurgeon who says nothing urgent; but now visual field deficit identified which is unusual -sees neurologist early march

[DameSaggarmakersbottomknocker]

Nutty - is this the dd with scoliosis?

[chocolatecakeystuff]

Cestlavielife - were the abnormalities in the cerebellum by any chance? Xx

[babySophieRose]

Hi, I am not suggesting that OP's dauther has any brain damage, there is a difference between brain and head injuries. I am not medical, but I know, I wish I did not. Someone from my family almost died four months ago, because in the Hospital they did not notice, after few examinations, that there is a bleeding between the brain and skull. I do not want to discussing it any further. Apologies to everyone, just though it could be helpful.

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

babySophieRose: I'm sorry to hear about your relative, and how awful that bleeding was missed.