Evidence seems to show that children’s headaches and migraines increase when they go back to school. Since school has just started in most parts of the country, this seems like a good time to talk about this subject.
The Nationwide Children’s Hospital physicians report that there is an increase in headaches in the fall for children. This, they believe, may be a trend that is possibly due to back-to-school changes in stress, sleep, too much caffeine, lack of exercise and routine. It is probably very difficult for parents to decipher a real headache from a young person wanting to avoid going back to school for just a little longer, but there are a variety of other common triggers such as poor hydration and prolonged screen time which could be attributed to a rise in headaches and migraines.
Ann Pakalnis, M.D., the lead researcher, attending neurologist and Director of the Comprehensive Headache Clinic at Nationwide Children’s stated, “When we saw many of our families and patients in clinic,the families would report that their children or teenager’s headaches would increased during the school year. So, we decided to go back and look at emergency department visits for that time period and see if there were more visits here at certain season variations during the year.”
As a result, they researched about 1300 emergency departments during the period of 2010 through 2014. The results of this researched showed that when monthly emergency department visits were groups seasonally, there was an increase in headaches in the fall in children ages five to 18 years. It would appear that boys tend to range from five to nine years-old with headaches, and these headaches tend to get better in later adolescence. For teenage girls, migraines often first arise around the time of puberty and tend to persist into adulthood.
While migraines are less common in children, the two types of primary headaches they suffer from are tension headaches and migraines. Although migraines may be less frequent in children, they tend to be far more severe in regards to the actual pain. Migraines generally are associated with nausea and vomiting, sensitivity to light, sound and smell. Conversely, tension headaches tend to feel more like a tightening around the head, and children can usually continue with their normal daily activities with this type of headache.
Headaches in children can often be prevented by eating three meals a day, getting enough sleep at night, not napping throughout the day, drinking enough liquids, and trying to remove the stresses associated with a child’s daily schedule.You can use some of the same natural remedies we have talked about in the past, always paying specific attention to your child’s diet. Of course, if your child experiences severe headache or a change in the headache sensation from prior headaches, it is always prudent to visit your child’s doctor so that the headaches can be evaluated.
I hope your children have a happy and healthy school year for 2015-2016!