Young teen with migraines, help! Triggers?!

[FreudianSlippery]

my nearly 13yo DSD has been diagnosed with migraines. :(

She's been told to keep a diary but she didn't know how so we are going to make her a chart here and hope she keeps filling it in at her house. What should we look out for?

I'm thinking food, sleep, screen time... Or can they just be random?

TBH her diet is shite (not for lack of trying by myself and DH) so hopefully the GP will suggest healthier eating at home... In the meantime though any tips?

My migraines started at that age and were entirely down to hormones and periods. Pretty bad up until about 16 then tailed off and now seem to be back again every time I have a period as I now approach 40. My doctors could do nothing to prevent and only thing I can do is make absolutely sure I always have specific migraine tablets and take them as soon as one starts and go and lie down for a couple of hours and usually passes.

Sorry... what a depressing message. Maybe there's something docs can do these days but migraines are evil and unfair!

Poor girl :(

I had migraines a lot at that age although I get them much less frequently now. You are right about the sort of things to look out for, common triggers are: lack of sleep; not eating regularly (e.g., skipping breakfast); flickering screens/lights; certain types of food; just before/during/just after menstruation; changes in atmospheric pressure (e.g, just before a thunderstorm). I don't know how common it is but my school uniform was one of my triggers - it had blue and white stripy shirts, which in summer assemblies would nearly always set me off.

Although, presumably, not a concern just yet, if she has migraine with aura some contraception is not recommended. If she is aware of this then she will know to tell her GP about her migraines if she goes to see him/her for contraception without a parent.

Dd2 went through a phase of migraines - has less now but is off school today. Silly me saying to dh yesterday that she hasn't had one for ages. Hormones and tiredness are a trigger. She also had a bad glasses description from Specsavers that were turning her eye out and light was catching it. Doctor did blood tests but nothing came up.

Often something sweet and carby helps my dd.

I got them around the same age. Don't get them so much now.

Magnesium supplements are supposed to be helpful and if her diet is not great she may well not be getting enough in her diet.

Thanks. I was wondering about periods actually - she started them last year and has been more unwell since so it's interesting to hear they are a possible trigger. They aren't regular so I'll suggest she puts an x on the chart when she has it.

She has regular eye check ups because of glasses so the GP doesn't think it's her eyes.

I know my mum's migraines can be triggered by a number of things but one that has always given her problems since she was a teen is monosodium glutamate (also known as flavour enhancer E621) which is found in lots of flavoured crisps, as well as chinese food and other seasonings and heavily flavoured savoury snacks/food. I know other people whose migraines are triggered by caffeine and chocolate, and another friend gets them every month at a certain point in her cycle. So I think keeping a food/activities diary may well help. :( for your DD

Dd1's are pretty random. Sometimes we've thought it's because she hasn't eaten much, sometimes stress (exams), sometimes tiredness.

We cannot identify one thing.

My migraines at that age were triggered by stress. On the day before an exam I would get one or when my dad was taken into hospital. But they did make me keep a food diary to rule out dietry triggers, along with food I'd eaten I also had a general wellbeing box I would note in how the day had gone.

HTH

Paracetemol trigger mine, which is ironic as I used to pop a pill when I felt them coming and round my period so it masked the real cause for a while.

My daughter's tiggers were - tiredness, low blood sugar, eating chocolate after 4.00 pm (but OK if eaten earlier), some additives. She seems to have grown out of them.

DH's triggers - flashing lights, sudden bright sunlight, low blood sugar, stress.

Hope you can find something which helps reduce the frequency and severity. If her diet is not good then the first thing I'd look at was low blood sugar. The teenage daughter of a work colleague of DH was hospitalised a few months ago by a particularly severe migraine - he told them about the low blood sugar trigger and after a period of adjusting to the change in her diet her migraines have now stopped as long as she eats properly/regularly. Good luck with finding something that helps.

Hormonal for me too. Every month, without fail, on the first day of my period. Luckily (?), I can stop the headache bit by taking ibuprofen as soon as the other symptoms arrive, mainly sneezing and a runny nose. Still feel pretty out of it, but at least I don't get the pain and eyesight disturbance.

Low blood sugar? I thought high would be more likely as she's eating a lot of junk food, she's a very fussy eater so it'll be hard changing her diet (and her mum is reluctant to try but that is another thread...)

I hope it's not stress. She's SO much happier at her new school, she struggled at juniors (dyslexia) and has finally settled and is doing well. However DH used to get terrible stress migraines/blackouts, which stopped after meeting me 8yrs ago.

I think all the triggers I know have probably been mentioned, though keeping a food diary along with headache 1 might be a good idea too, as that way you can pinpoint any foods or additives that are her triggers.
my Neuro put me on high dose Magnesium & riboflavin (B2??) which has helped a little.

Have you looked into herbals??, my Migraine used to be mainly hormonal & I used to use Feverfew for years with great success, really eased them right down, & for the most part stopped the actual headaches & eased the other symptoms down to barely there, I only stopped taking it when trying for DD, & sadly it doesn't work as well for me any more, but certainly worth you looking into for your DD, you take it daily, as a preventative

Sound can trigger mine, football match on TV, that sort of thing, but that may be just an early sign theres one coming, other than that all of the above, especially storms, patterns, lihts, low sugar etc, I have to eat little & often or I'm in trouble

hope you find some answers for her

www.rediff.com/getahead/2005/apr/11mig.htm

I was surfing looking for info for my own ongoing migraine problems & came across the site above, remembered your post & as its quite a comprehensive trigger list, lots of other info on the site too, thought it might be of help for you :)

Aww thanks RH will have a look tonight! She's started her diary now and hopefully will continue with it so we can sort it out :)

Have read it now. I was interested - though not terribly surprised - to see that the first food listed under tyramine was cheese! She eats sooo much of it

My triggers at that age were dehydration, tiredness, stress.

I grew out of them by my mid-20s but they came back with a vengeance when I was pregnant with DS2 (was having at least one a day!), now my main trigger is caffeine :(

Another vote for hormonal here, but other things that can trigger me are:
bright lights (paricularly coming at an angle, or coming through curtains first thing in the morning)
flashing light
tiredness
hunger
thirst
chocolate (usually only if I have already got one coming, but then it can kick it into starting fully)
red grapes used to. Doesn't any more.
stress
too much screen time.
reading with strong light on white page

Generally just one doesn't do it, but one will start me feeling headachy, and another one will tip me over the edge into a full migraine coming. Unfortunately the act of taking a pill can be a trigger too, so I have disolvable paracetamol/coodermol (sp?) to take if one seems to be coming quickly and I don't have to drive/look after kids/do anything that matters as coodermol sends me completely useless for 6-12 hours.

At that age for me it was hormonal. Poor girl. I grew out of it, but am now getting them back! Low blood sugar at that time of the month and it was practically guaranteed. I carried emergency choc digestives in my school bag! HTH

thanks. I don't really know much about low blood sugar, except how to tell when I have it.

does it occur in someone who eats a lot? i.e. if they eat lots of chocolate, they'll get low blood sugar after an hour or so?

Twolittlemonkeys- thank you for that additive number, I suffer from migraines and often get one after I try a new Chinese restaurant, I can almost taste in the food that I'm going to get one, but could never figure out what specifically it was! Thank you, I'm off to read up on that and avoid them!
Mine kicked in when I was around that age and tiredness was my main trigger. I think it's that age where they're pushing bedtime boundries and finding it more difficult to drift off. For me it could be because I'd missed out on just an hours sleep 3 nights in a row and the next day (say Thursday) I would be so ill!
My point in stating this (in a long winded manner) is that my mom had ruled out tiredness as a trigger as I wasn't skipping whole nights of sleep or staying up till 2/3am. And it took months for me to figure it out!

Hope this helps! I'm not sure if she's too young,or if they still sell them, but MigraLieve (I think) used to be great, 2 pills- 1 as soon as u feel it and the next an hour or so after!!

When I was that young I can't remember anything about triggers sadly but I remember being able to sometimes fight one off with carbs and lots of water This stopped being so effective when I reached my mid 20s though

Hmm I was wondering about sleep too, so we've put that as a category on her diary. She gets loads of sleep during the week - she's always had early bedtimes set by her mum. It's now supposed to be 9pm on a school night, but very often she (and her twin) would take herself off to bed and be asleep by 8

I figured it was just the shock of secondary school but they are halfway through yr8 now and thought they'd be used to it. However they stay up late on weekends so maybe it's the change every few days that's damaging - I've heard it's best not to have lie ins/late nights once a week, it's best to be consistent throughout the whole week - even for adults - so as not to disrupt the body clock.

certain smells set mine off,petrol, nail varnish,paint etc

DS and I both started having migraines at around 8/9 - again I think hormonal.

Lack of sleep; stress; bright lights; flashing lights; low winter sun reflected on snow / white buildings etc; periods (for me - few days before and then few days after); chocolate; oranges (but ok with orange juice); pork; more than one cup of coffee; painting with gloss paint