Horrible phone call with school😭

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

My dd has bad anxiety and severe stress migraines. She’s struggled in through all her exams with blinding headaches. She was diagnosed 5 days before her first exam and medications are a bit hit and miss. She’s hardworking and diligent.

Last night she started with the worst one ever. Was very upset about her history GCSE today. She was not in a fit state to go. All of her problems have been supported by lots of GP evidence. I sent the last letter in yesterday.

Conersation with school 1/2 an hour ago.

’It’s only an hour, can’t she come in’
’Can’t she take medication’
’Not sure what the exam board will do’
’You’ll need a doctors note’
”Can’t you just encourage her’

Like l was fucking lying!!!
She’s so upset, l was upset by the call. It’s all documented and this is what you get. Gilt tripping when your poor 15 year old is too ill to think clearly ‘Can’t she just come in for the hour?’🤬🤬🤬🤬

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).

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

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.

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.

Because we’ve been in constant touch with them on Gp advice including sending the link from the GP. And the various letters. So they should know.

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.

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

She can really only take Pzitofen due to being under 16.

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.

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?

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

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.

@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.

@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

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.

@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

As a fellow migraine sufferer, they are fucking ridiculous. I can't see when I have migraine. Let alone actually read anything.

You are taking your understandable upset at the situation, out on the school.

They were suggesting solutions, not disbelieving you. You just needed to continue saying not possible.

Yes and other things like magnesium/riboflavin, taking an anti-emetic along with acute medication 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

Wow! Lovely thanks.

The GP offered ( and charged). She needs the notes for any sort of consideration issues. She has a disability and this is how it works in a school🤷🏼‍♀️

And FWiw l used to bend over backwards for all my struggling kids. Why wouldn’t l?

I’m with you OP. You cannot take someone with a severe migraine anywhere, much less to an exam. My DB attempted his O level English Language paper with a bad migraine - for some reason in those days it seems it was only one paper. He had to leave early to vomit, and got no grade or maybe F (can’t remember now). Had a chance to resit it in his Year 12 and got a B.

Hopefully once you’ve got the migraines under control it won’t be a problem for further exams at A level and beyond. Managing triggers with a migraine diary will help - many triggers may need manageable whether that is stress, lack of sleep, too much screen use, changes in blood sugar, dehydration, bad PMT or sudden changes in the weather (air pressure).

I’m sorry the school didn’t seem sympathetic, a lot of people just equate migraine with headache and don’t understand the severity of the problem when you have a bad attack. Just calmly stand your ground and keep saying what you’re saying to them.

You’ve clearly never had a migraine.

To be honest with you if you water off a ducks back with the school made any comments like that to me about my child I don’t know maybe it’s because I’ve had to deal with them for a very long time but I just nodded and smiled and then did whatever the fuck I wanted in my child’s best interests because you have to live with the kids and the consequences for a lot longer than they do.

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.

This is interesting. I also have a 15 year old DD who was diagnosed with stress related migraines by our GP at age 8 or 9. She also has ASD. She has been on pizotifen on and off since then, as it's the only thing ever offered. She's currently not taking anything because she says the Pizotifen doesn't make any difference. Her migraines do seem to have lessened in severity though, and she currently has them less often, however her anxiety has definitely increased massively over the past year. Having read this thread, if they worsen again I'll ask for something else, or a referral. Last time she saw the GP about her migraines was over a year ago, and although I asked about alternatives, all they did was tell her to double the Pizotifen dose, which didn't help at all. Like OP's DD, she doesn't get them in the school holidays. She is currently on part time school hours because she can't cope with full time school, so she is missing so much. We have another year till GCSEs and I'm hoping that a separate referal for anti anxiety/anti depressant meds will help enough to get her through them.

@bronzepig yes, absolutely agree with you! I would be lost without the cocktail of meds I take as treatment now, both to prevent and relieve. And plenty of them are okay for paeds. Red listing is a very sensible practice but does mean parents have to be proactive in getting children to a consultant if that's what is blocking full access to some meds.

Your posts are great, btw, bronzepig :)