Solve child’s sleep problems = solve migraine?

No, it’s not that simple, but the connection needs to be investigated more.  We know there is a strong connection between migraine and sleep problems in adults.  Now we’re learning about the connection in children.

A recently published study involved 90 patients from age 5-19.  60 of the patients were diagnosed with migraine, the others had various types of headache.  56% of the migraine patients had sleep disordered breathing, as opposed to 30% of the other patients.

Dr Bradley V. Vaughn, a neurologist from the USA who was not involved in the study, made a good point: "Children with headache should be questioned about symptoms of sleep disorders because there’s a high incidence of them in this group"

Now, the incidence may not be so high in the general population.  What I didn’t mention was that these were patients who already reported sleep problems and headache.  The interesting point is that the percentage was so much higher in the migraineurs.  Especially those with chronic or severe migraine simply didn’t sleep as well as the other groups.

True, patients with migraine are more likely to nap.  Still, there is evidence that there is some underlying neurological problem that is triggering migraine and changing sleep patterns.

Other interesting things that were noticed:  bruxism (clenching or grinding teeth) was present in 50% of children with tension type headache.  Most of the children with sleep apnea were referred to an ear-nose-throat (ENT) specialist, and half of those children ended up with a tonsillectomy.  Most (80%) of those children had significantly fewer and less severe migraine attacks.  Interesting.

It’s not normal to do a polysomnography (a type of sleep test) for children with migraine.  Maybe it should be added to the normal tests given.  This link needs to be further investigated.

Read more on the study: AAN: Pediatric Headache Type Linked to Troubled Sleep, or read more about migraine in children.