Daily headaches 9 year old girl

[SheffDad]

Hi just posting to see if anyone has been through anything similar and if anyone has tried any therapies with any success.

My daughter started with daily headches last April which seem to be getting worse and are now keeping her off school a few times a month.

She has had an MRI and blood tests all clear apart from a slight chairi malformation which the neurosurgeon didn't seem to think was related.

We have seen numerous gps and paedatric consultants which all seem to say monitor the situation.... none seem willing to try medication which obviously we wouldn't either butits now really starting to affect her life.

So far we have tried
Magnesium
Iron supplements
No chocolate/cheese
Less screen time
Eye tests

We are starting some accupunture this week so fingers crossed that makes a difference.

I have read of a condition called new daily persistent headache which may be related to a bad case of tonsillitis she had last year

Anyway if anyone has been through this let me know!

Thanks

Thanks for the suggestions we are trying cutting things one by one and also trying a gluten free diet this week. I wish there was some kind of test to see the triggers! What was the preventetive you ended up on?

Cheers for the reply and sorry to hear she suffered so long. Did she have any side effects with the sumatriptan because my daughter had really bad jaw/throat pain and went quite out of it for an hour or so. She doesn't want to take it again and neither do I it was quite scary! Shame the pizotifen didn't work for her that's the one I want her try next.

I thought people with chairi malformation do often experience headaches?

Was also going to suggest an osteopath. Our local one runs a headache clinic.

Could it be stress from school? Does she have the headaches over the school holidays?

Yeah we did think that but we have spoken to the teachers and there doesn't seem to be a problem there. Also the headaches are pretty much constant all year even on holidays

Thanks I've not heard of that one. We have a blood pressure monitor I'll see if we can test it

Yeah I think they do but these aren't the typical chairi headaches in the neck and back of the head whereas hers are at the front. I was convinced it was because of the chairi but we saw a neurosurgeon who ruled it out as a cause. We have asked for a second opinion though because I'm not 100% convinced

I'm wondering about trying gluten free and maybe dairy free if there's no change.

DD's headaches are in both temples so it does seem like they are triggered by tension. But we just can't seem to get rid of it. We've tried stretching, physio, cranial osteopath, massage and nothing seems to help.

Recently been through this with my 10 year old. He started complaining about a headache everyday. It got to the point he would come in from playing out and be asking for medicine (calpol/brufen) a couple of times a day.

After a couple of weeks of this I took him to GP who took it extremely seriously - if I remember the part that alarmed him and made home escalate to paediatrician was that he wakes up with the headache in the morning, ie external factors such as school/stress/tiredness/diet are not causing it throughout the day.

The paediatrician sent him for an MRI which came back clear but they recommended another one in 6 months to check for changes which he actually has this morning.

Probably just before Christmas the headaches stopped and he hasn’t had one since, so it was a good 3 months of daily headaches with no rhyme or reason it seems. He has a good diet, sleeps well, drinks a lot of water - doctor said it may be childhood migraines, pre puberty related or ‘just one of those things.’

The Sumatriptan does make her feel awful but she knows if she can get through it she'll feel better. Schools have both been quite good and let her lay down for a bit after taking it, it's not something you can take and just carry on as normal with. Having said that it doesn't solve the pain, mainly the other migraine symptoms. She's 17 now and so there's a bit more flexibility drug wise.

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That's what I'm hoping for it to just disapear I'm glad his did so fast. Not been offered another MRI but we will push for it if it carries on. I have read a lot of other posts where it does just eventually go but this has been going on for ages now poor thing

Yeah don't think the sumatriptan will work for her really knocked her out. I think because of her age it's probably not a good idea. Will ask at the next appointment if there are any other drugs to try

We've done it 2 days now and she does actually seem a bit better but whether that's a coincidence or not I'm not sure. We will give it a full week at least to be sure. Hers tends to be in the middle of her forehead which also seems to indicate tension headaches but the nausea is like a migrane so it's very confusing 😕

My dd also suffers with chronic migraines and as pp said waking up with it is a red flag for children under 12. Dd was over 12 when it started and also had some other symptoms. She’s been (privately) diagnosed with migraines, PoTS and CFS. The pizotifen has worked wonders and after 8 months of a continuous migraines they finally improved. She tried sumatriptan but gave her awful side effects and didn’t help.

We also had a million HCPs try to blame it all on anxiety because she is a teenage girl. In the end even I was questioning her mental health. Still furious about it.

I suffered from ‘pressure’ behind my eyes and was diagnosed with atypical facial pain. Daily Amitriptyline has helped hugely.

As an aside, if you can afford the monthly premium, some private medical insurers are offering policies with a medical history disregard meaning your DD would be covered for investigations into her migraines.

I hope you get some answers soon.

If DD has a headache when she goes to sleep it's still there in the morning. Thankfully the MRI was clear.

Sleep regulation to the extent we actively avoid certain activities/events that might affect this.

B12: notice an improvement once levels within the recommended range.

Hydration: really helps.

She sounds exactly like me as a child. I know it sounds mundane but the only thing we ever found that really helped was staying well hydrated (which actually requires quite a lot of thought if you're not someone who 'feels' thirsty, which I seemed to lack) and prioritising good sleep. To be honest the trying different painkillers process just made me more distressed but I know that can be different for different people. Sadly chocolate also seemed to make it worse for me (although no chocolate didn't make it stop)

I know I do worry that all these gp and hospital visits might actually be making it worse but we can't carry on with her missing as much school as she has. I don't really want to be giving her drugs so young but we've tried all the natural remedies so far. We will try and upbtge water though. Do you still get the migranes now?

We are trying to get a better sleep pattern so hopefully that will make a difference. Do the b12 levels show on a regular full blood count test? It would be interesting to know what hers are but they haven't actually given us a breakdown of the results.

I do but nowhere near as often - it's an unusual rather than commonplace thing for me now, and the drugs do seem to work better as an adult. Gradually improved as an early to mid teen. I hope things get better sooner than that for your DD x

Yeah exactly the same. When they said morning headaches were a red flag we panicked but same clear MRI apart from the chairi.

@SheffDad
I'm not 100% sure so you may have to request this along with various other vitamin levels.

We were not aware of the potential connection between b12 deficiency and migraines until a nurse suggested it. We have seen a marked improvement since supplements were introduced.