Is Your Child With Migraine Tired and Depressed?

Is your child, who has migraine attacks, also tired and depressed? I don’t mean just during a migraine attack, but a lot of the time.

It is critically important to be aware of other symptoms besides the obvious ones, like headache and nausea. Why? Because, as with adults, migraine doesn’t always come alone, it brings its “friends”.

A recent study on children with myalgic encephalomyelitis (also called chronic fatigue syndrome) highlights the need, once again, to be aware of other symptoms.

In the study, patients with both ME/CFS and diabetes were studied. What other symptoms/disorders/diseases did they have? It may not be surprising that many also had migraine. Other common symptoms were depression, weakness, muscle pain and the obvious one – fatigue.

Almost half of the patients were dealing with general tiredness for a year before they were actually diagnosed with ME/CFS.

Another interesting finding – many had had an infection (such as infectious mononucleosis) in the two year period before their diagnosis with ME/CFS.

In other words, if your child just doesn’t seem to be getting his or her energy back, there may be a good reason. Their infection may have be related to longer term problems.

It’s very hard, especially in children, to recognize symptoms – especially when there are a bunch of symptoms happening together. It’s easy to focus on the most debilitating ones.

But the more we can be aware – both as children and adults – of the various symptoms we may be experiencing, the shorter the path will be to good treatment.

Study abstract: Comorbidities treated in primary care in children with chronic fatigue syndrome / myalgic encephalomyelitis