Information for sufferers

Migraine in Children and Young People

Just as with adults migraine is widespread amongst children and young people with migraine affecting 2% of five year olds and 18% of 13-14 year olds.

Migraine in children and young people can often go undiagnosed and untreated, which can have negative consequences in terms of children and young people’s wellbeing and educational attainment.

Migraine in children and young people however can differ from that found in adults. The migraine attacks are often shorter, will usually involve nausea and in 60% of cases vomiting. Trigger factors for children and young people include excitement, stress, anxiety and exams.

Migraine can have a major impact of the life of a child. Research has shown that children and young people with migraine will have more absence from school than those without migraine. They also score lower in terms of quality of life than children without migraine.

Managing migraine in school can pose particular difficulties for young sufferers. Unlike other health conditions such as diabetes and asthma a young migraine sufferer is not allowed to take their medication into school. This invariably results in longer and more painful migraine attacks leading to a longer absence from school. Parents and carers are also adversely affected, having to leave work or home to collect an unwell child from school.

In general population studies, between three and 13 days are taken off school with headache on average per year. In migraine clinic populations that figure rises to an average of between 32 days and three months taken off school with headache per year.

Migraine in children and young people is often associated with other childhood syndromes including:

• Cyclical vomiting syndrome – recurrent severe episodes of vomiting
• Benign paroxysmal vertigo – this affects particularly young children who have episodes of unsteadiness
• Benign idiopathic paroxysmal torticollis – only present in infants

Abdominal pain seems to be more common in children with migraine than adults. If there is an absence of headache in the child but there is recurring abdominal pain this is known as abdominal migraine. Abdominal migraine still has symptoms of migraine including nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite, intolerance to noise and light etc.

Up until puberty migraine is equally found in boys as it is in girls but with the onset of puberty migraine is increasingly prevalent in girls. This is because of the start of the menstrual cycle which often causes migraine due to changes in hormone levels.

Because migraine becomes more prevalent during adolescence it usually coincides with the prescription of the contraceptive pill. Young female migraine sufferers should ensure their GP or nurse advisor understands whether they have migraine with or without aura before prescribing the pill or other hormonal methods of contraception as this will determine the safest method.

Information for parents and carers can be found here.

As with adults effective management of migraine requires a diagnosis from a GP which is aided by a migraine diary. You can either use our online migraine diary to help you or use an offline one available from our shop.

The Migraine Trust produces two free to download booklets for children and young people who have migraine. One is for 7-12 year olds and the second is for teens. You can download them from here or alternatively they can also be purchased from our shop.