CAUSES OF HEADACHES IN CHILDREN: ABDOMINAL MIGRAINE

Although children often have ‘headaches’ in the abdomen, we are not yet sure whether abdominal migraine is a normal migraine that is just perceived in the stomach (as with oilier general pain in children), or whether it is an entirely separate variety of migraine. Al first you might think it strange for a migraine to cause abdominal symptoms. However, even in the adult, migraine is not just associated with headache. The absorption of food and medicines from the stomach is considerably delayed, there is very often vomiting, and it may well be that the headache of migraine is merely the most prominent part of a condition which actually affects a great deal more of the body that just the head. It isn’t surprising that the abdomen would hurt: if there were problems of absorption within it and there are also food-allergy components to the cause of migraine.

Abdominal migraine follows much the same pattern as ‘head’ migraine. The time scale is much the same; there is often sickness and nausea; but, the aura and visual disturbance don’t occur. Abdominal migraine responds to many drugs that help in adult migraine – particularly painkillers, metoclopramide (an anti-nauseant), and at times, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen.

Only a proportion of childhood migraineurs get the abdominal form of migraine; the remainder get ‘normal’ head migraines. Nor do people with abdominal migraine continue with abdominal migraine all their lives. Often the migraine is converted to the ‘normal head form, or stops altogether.

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