Mom of a teenager suffering migraines
I'm the mother of a 15 year old girl (Kaity) who has sadly hit the genetic lottery. My husband and I both have suffered from migraines over the years to differing extents and serverity and she seems to have them too. She's had them very occasionally over the years (at least headaches that I was pretty sure were migraines) but they ramped up big time the end of August of this year.
She has barely been to school (10th grade) for all of Sept. and Oct. and no one seems to have any answers. Her pediatrician is doing his best but he's no expert and just throws meds at her, I've had her to the ER twice (reglan was a miracle for a nine-day level 7-8 headache) and also tried the ENT - to rule out sinus issues, the opthalmologist - to rule out eye strain and Pseudotumor cerebri which 2 doc had suggested, and even the Orthdontist - to make sure the TMJ she also suffers from isn't the cause, and we finally have an appt with the Pediatric Neurologist this Wednesday - we have waited nearly 2 months for this!! We are SOOOO frustrated.
The school is losing all patience now too which is an added stress. She went to school today for the first time in 3 weeks (with an awful headache) She has dropped her first 3 classes of the day now so she doesn't have to go in till 10am which we are hoping will help give her time to get the headaches she wakes up with nearly every day under control to some extent. The headaches don't seem to run in any sort of cycle that would make anyone suspect they were related to hormonal cycles and all the basic neuro tests the docs have done have been normal enough that I have been unable to convince anyone to do an MRI or a full Lab workup.
She is taking Topamax 75mg at this point as she was losing way too much weight at 100mg. We may ease that dosage up but for now she's just trying to get used to the side effects. She is also taking Zyrtec (double dose) because they think allergies could be a trigger for her. I have also put her on Butterbur 50mg, feverfew 50mg, magnesium 150mg, and riboflavin 200mg as a result of my research. She also takes a good multi.
She spends the majority of every day in the dark in bed sleeping. Her digital footprint is even very small these days for a 15 year old girl so for all those so called experts who think solution is to take away her phone and computer I don't think that's the problem. It's got to be getting to her emotionally and face it...she a 15 year old girl - emotional is her middle name already.
I'm so happy to have found this site and looking forward to exploring this supportive community of people who understand and aren't just going to tell me she's faking or she needs to learn to suck it up.
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