Your child's health - migraine headaches - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

Fifteen-year-old Kailey Weaver is in for her regular checkup for migraine headaches.  Her mother, Robyn, has been bringing her to the doctor since she was seven. "In second grade, she had a really bad headache," Robyn remembered. "We didn't realize at the time, that's really what it was. It was very severe, vomiting, just a very, very intense pain."

A more serious episode happened when Kailey was eleven. She phoned her mom in tears.

"She was very difficult to understand, her speech was impaired," Robyn recalled. "When I came home, she was complaining that part of her body was numb."

Kailey thinks it was probably around sixth grade when it she started having the dizziness, and the numbness, and the speech impaired. "I realized it wasn't just a headache," she said.

Community Health Network Neurologist Dr. Debra O'Donnell described a migraine: "Migraines, in their classic sense, tend to be a headache that occurs on one side of the head, in the frontal or temporal regions, and a lot of our teenagers, move into having those classic symptoms."

"Looking back, she was probably eight years old when she had her first migraine," her mother recalled. "But at the time we didn't realize that's what it was."

In addition to the intense pain, migraine symptoms in children are confusion, slurred speech, difficulty walking and numbness.

For Kailey, treatment with over-the-counter pain remedies and improving her diet and sleep habits have been effective.

"Just drinking more water, eating breakfast, getting a lot of sleep, and the medicine has helped a lot," she said.

"I think it's phenomenal," Robyn said. "Just within the last three months, we've gotten to the point where we're on the right preventative medicine."

Dr. O'Donnell says, typically, boys will outgrow migraines, but girls can carry it into adulthood.

Tuesday on Your Child's Health, we'll take a look at allergies and the signs your child may have a food or environmental allergy.