“Just Migraine” (trust me). Or – Brain Tumour?

Here we go again.  Another patient diagnosed with “migraine” – but let’s not check too carefully.

Kian Jones was a school boy who started experiencing symptoms familiar to many migraineurs – vomiting, vision problems, and headache.

Three times Kian was taken to the hospital.  It’s just a “stomach infection” was the first diagnosis.  But when symptoms didn’t go away, the new diagnosis was “migraine”.

How carefully was Kian checked out?  Not very.

Kian’s mother Sabina wasn’t convinced.  She started searching online – and discovered that patients were often checked out a lot more carefully at the onset of new symptoms like her son’s.  For example, a CT scan was often called for.

She urged doctors to call for the scan.

And it was discovered that Kian had a brain tumour.

Thankfully, and thanks to Mom, Kian is now getting proper treatment.  He is now recovering and back in school.

Now before we’re too hard on the doctors, we do need to remember that brain tumours are rare, and migraine disease is far more common.  We don’t know all the details of his symptoms.  A CT scan is not always called for – it does depend on the symptoms a patient has.

However, there is a continuing concern that doctors in general seem to be far too quick to “write off” symptoms as migraine.  They won’t bother to diagnose the type of migraine (treatments vary depending on the type), and they won’t bother to rule out other conditions that are increasingly likely as symptoms progress.

Symptoms of brain tumour (if there are any symptoms) can be exactly the same as migraine (especially certain types of migraine).  Seizures are more common with brain tumour than with migraine.  But symptoms such as headaches, changes in behaviour, nausea, changes in vision/smell, problems with coordination – these are all common in both.

One possible difference is that with tumour symptoms may develop more gradually.  Symptoms will increase over time, instead of coming powerfully and then disappearing as they sometimes do with migraine.

This video from the Cancer Council in Australia will help you think through some of the symptoms of brain tumour.

via:  Mother saves son’s life after Googling revealed he could have a BRAIN TUMOUR not simply ‘migraines’