Headache in children is a common symptom and is not a disease in itself. However, there are about 200 types of headache, and in most cases its presence is a sign of a certain ill-being, but not always a painful condition. You should not leave the child's complaints about headaches unattended, especially if the complaints are repeated periodically.
Description
Before you try to understand why a child has a headache, it is worthwhile to better imagine what it really is - a headache (cephalalgia). And this is perhaps the most common non-specific symptom that only exists in medicine. This means that there are a wide variety of diseases and conditions in which headaches can be present.
First of all, let's define the wording. Saying that a head hurts, one should understand - the brain cannot directly hurt, it has no pain receptors, and that is why open brain surgery does not require anesthesia.
Only the processes of opening the skull are anesthetized, but during surgical procedures the doctor tries to talk with the patient in order to see how his brain is working correctly.
Pain can occur in one of the areas that are close to the head and have pain receptors. What we habitually call a headache can be pain in the periosteum, muscles of the skull, cranial nerves, arteries, veins, eyes, sinuses, and cervical spine.
Doctors estimate that 90% of people experience a headache at least once in one calendar year. But such pain indicates a specific serious illness only in about 1% of cases. Everything else is the so-called tension pains. Women and girls have headaches about 3 times more often than men and boys.
If a child complains of a headache, there is no need to brush him off.... You should ask where and how it hurts, evaluate if there are other complaints, and also remember everything that the baby did recently, how much he played, rested, what he ate and where he was. This will help distinguish pathological cephalalgia from physiological, which does not pose a serious danger.
Classification and types
It may sound fun, but there is even a special medical organization in the world that studies headaches. It is called the International Headache Society. It was it that made up the classification of the types of cephalgia. It includes more than 200 positions, and here are just the most common ones:
- migraine;
- tension headache;
- cluster headache;
- traumatic and post-traumatic;
- vascular;
- medicinal or medication;
- associated with infections;
- associated with disorders of homeostasis;
- associated with an abnormal or pathological condition of the eyes, hearing organs, facial and cranial nerves, teeth and oral cavity;
- psychogenic pain (on nerves).
Doctors isolate primary and secondary headaches... Primary ones are not associated with changes in the structure of the brain, lesions of the central nervous system. They are in themselves, that is, primary. These include, for example, tension pain, which is very common in children. Secondary are all other pains, the causes of which are varied. To simplify the task, the classification is reduced to 5 positions:
- myogenic or muscular;
- cervicogenic;
- vascular;
- infectious;
- associated with mechanical action on pain receptors.
What happens in a child's body?
What happens with different types of cephalalgia in a child's body is not so difficult to understand.
- Vascular pain - caused by a spasm of arteries, blood vessels, low venous tone, slowing blood flow, hypoxia. In this case, the body does not receive enough oxygen.
- Stress pain - caused by excessive muscle tension, in which the pain impulse is transmitted from the tense muscles to the pain centers. Therefore, often after strong physical exertion, a child may complain of headaches.
- CSF pain - the child's cerebrospinal fluid pressure increases or decreases, respectively, intracranial pressure increases or decreases.
- Neurological pain - caused by irritating effects on the nerve endings.
- Combined pain - can be called by all of the above mechanisms at the same time or in turn.
- Psychogenic - This is a true headache that is not associated with muscles, nerves or blood vessels at all. The child is healthy, and the head hurts due to stress, anxiety, mental disorders, emotional disturbances.
When is the condition safe?
If a child complains of a headache, do not panic, in most cases it does not pose a danger to the baby's life. Now that you are grounded in theory, it is worth moving on to practice and finding out what causes a "non-dangerous" cephalalgia may have. The headache is not threatening in the following cases:
- migraine;
- physical stress;
- intoxication;
- taking certain medications;
- short-term inhalation of pungent odors and irritation of nerve endings with loud, prolonged sounds.
Pain in these types of cephalalgia is usually concentrated in the forehead. It is not accompanied by fever. After assessing the location of the pain according to the baby's complaints, it is worth analyzing when and under what circumstances complaints appear. For example, with migraines, pain in the frontal part usually appears in the evening, after sleep it goes away, often it is preceded by hunger, for example, the child did not eat at school or at home. It can appear after physical exertion or as a result of lack of sleep.
Children are very sensitive to weather conditions, and can also react to changes in atmospheric pressure with migraine attacks. Such pain begins on the right or left side of the frontal part, and then concentrates in the center of the forehead.
In adolescent girls, it may coincide with the periods of premenstrual syndrome or directly with the menstrual bleeding itself.
Tension headache is pressing in nature, as if the head is being squeezed in a vice on both sides. The condition can arise in response to severe stress at school, at home, after the child was forced to spend some time in a stuffy room, after an exam or important competitions, before which the child was in a state of excitement and tension.
Such myogenic pain can be the result of an uncomfortable posture during exercise, as well as the result of a long game with a phone or tablet. If you ask the child to squat, then the tension headache does not intensify, does not change. It is concentrated in the frontal and temporal lobes.
Cluster pain is always severe and occurs in one area. The attacks last no more than 3 hours. The child's behavior during an attack changes, he becomes restless and even aggressive. The eye on one side may be red, although this is not necessary. These pains are considered primary and require prevention and symptomatic care when they occur. Eliminating the negative factors that can cause pain usually completely solves the problem of recurrent attacks.
Symptoms of pathological cephalalgia
It is necessary to take the child to a doctor's appointment if the headaches recur with an enviable frequency. Pathological pains requiring compulsory comprehensive diagnostics have additional features that you should be aware of. Since pain can be a sign of a malfunction of one or more sensitive receptor zones, it should be understood that in the first place Areas of the neck, organs of hearing, vision, brain and respiratory organs are subject to examination.
Cervical osteochondrosis, decreased vision due to constant tension of the optic nerve, hearing impairment, sinusitis and sinusitis can cause severe headache attacks. If you give a child headache pills, then remember that there is a separate type of pain that develops against the background of excessive intake of analgesics - abusal cephalalgia.
Pay attention to the attacks of the so-called thunderous headache - it does not last long, but it is always very strong, the child can lose balance, consciousness. She, like other pathological symptoms, can speak of serious disturbances in the work of blood vessels, the nervous system. The pathological nature of cephalalgia is indicated by its ability to change depending on the position of the body, a feeling of numbness of the limbs, mini-paralysis.
Children with pathological cephalalgia usually have sleep disturbances at night, and during the day they are drowsy and lethargic.
To understand if the child needs examination, you need to analyze what the pain is, where it is felt and what preceded it. If a child constantly has a headache after a fall or blow, is dizzy, with sudden movements, attacks of nausea, vomiting appear, one should assume a head injury, concussion. If you fall on your back, the tailbone may injure the spine.
In both cases, the child should be taken to a doctor as soon as possible. In the first case, you can go to the emergency room on your own if the child is conscious; in the second, you always need to ensure a calm horizontal position and call an ambulance.
If, in addition to the pain, you notice that the child is not breathing well through the nose, trying to breathe through the mouth, you should visit an ENT doctor. It is possible that cephalalgia has become a symptom of adenoids, sinusitis, sinusitis. Such pain is usually concentrated in the frontal part of the head, it is dull and aching, it hurts almost constantly.
A child who complains of nausea and headache, which intensifies in the evening, and at the same time squints, comes close to an object of interest to him, a toy, should be examined by an ophthalmologist. It is possible that he developed vision problems. If not only the head, but also the neck hurts, the child is not given sharp turns of the head, the mobility of the head is limited, you should visit an orthopedic surgeon and neurologist. The reason may lie both in osteochondrosis and in neurological disorders.
Headache and body temperature are a special relationship that will help distinguish infectious cephalalgia from other types. If the temperature is kept at a subfebrile level of 37.0-37.7 degrees, the head may ache due to the general inflammatory process, into which any other organ is involved. When the temperature rises above 38 degrees, an infection is suspected, and such pains are almost an obligatory symptom for flu, chickenpox, measles, ARVI. In this case, the pain itself does not carry a great danger, but the child must be examined by a pediatrician in order to exclude complications of the underlying infectious disease.
Infectious pain is quite strong, often radiating to the back of the head.
Pay attention to the sudden severe pain in the head against the background of a high temperature above 39 degrees. It can be one of the signs of meningitis, the onset of tick-borne encephalitis. In this case, meningeal and neurological symptoms are usually observed - convulsions, vomiting, nausea, eyes open with difficulty, confusion, delirium appears.
If your child has a head and stomach ache at the same time, look for stools. Maybe general intoxication due to prolonged constipation or headache develops as a symptom of dehydration with prolonged diarrhea. Abdominal pain, if severe, acute is the more important complaint. To exclude surgical pathology, the child should be taken to the hospital as soon as possible, where the surgeon will examine him.
Severe acute pain, in which signs of paralysis appear on one side of the body, begins to squint, and may indicate a dangerous condition - ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke. Medical assistance should be provided within the first 3 hours, until the changes in the substance of the brain become irreversible.
Where it hurts and what to do - a memo for parents
Diagnostics
Despite the fact that in most cases an unpleasant cephalalgia is primary and does not pose a danger to the child, with frequent complaints, you should definitely visit a doctor. It should be noted that the exact form of cephalalgia is obvious to theorists. In practice, it can be very difficult to understand the exact reason for a headache. And the difficulty is that there may be several reasons at once. Sometimes, long-term observation of the child is needed to establish the true one. The most objective diagnostic scheme includes:
- visiting an ophthalmologist and examination of the fundus;
- blood pressure level control;
- EEG - electroencephalographic examination;
- tomography of the brain;
- sometimes - a lumbar puncture with a collection of cerebrospinal fluid for laboratory research.
In all cases, when the symptoms are not similar to the primary headache, the doctor will prescribe an examination and consultations with related specialists. If an objective reason cannot be found, parents will be advised to show the child to a psychiatrist.
The fact is that in some forms of schizophrenia, illusory tingling sensations and even burning sensations inside the head often occur, which both a child and an adult can regard as painful sensations. And with depression, headaches mainly occur in the morning, and in the evening, the child becomes easier, and in this case he will also be recommended a visit to a psychiatrist or psychotherapist to receive adequate therapy.
Treatment
Parents are advised to keep a diary of observations, noting the frequency of occurrence of cephalalgia attacks in a child, its nature, if the baby can describe it, indicating the accompanying symptoms. It can be helpful to indicate both what the child did before the attack and what he ate. Sometimes pain in the head is one of the signs of intolerance to certain foods, sensitization. This connection can also be identified from the diary.
In the spring of 2007, a new treatment for chronic non-pathological headache was officially introduced.
Primary cephalalgia almost completely disappears after the implantation of the electrodes. Acupuncture methods have shown effectiveness under certain circumstances, and previously recommended acupuncture for everyone did not confirm its effectiveness at all, and modern doctors are inclined to consider its effect as a placebo effect. It is much more effective in primary cephalalgia to create conditions for the child in which repeated attacks are unlikely. For this it is recommended:
- walking more in the fresh air;
- restrict the use of computer equipment, gadgets;
- provide the child with a complete diet (exclude mono diets, vegetarian tables, fast food);
- make sure that the baby sleeps at least 9-11 hours a day;
- ventilate the room in which the child plays, sleeps, learns lessons;
- to provide adequate physical activity, this has nothing to do with professional sports;
- avoid coffee, strong tea, and other foods high in caffeine;
- not overloading children with additional activities, 1-2 sections are enough, attending 5 plus arts school at once is a prerequisite for chronic stress and tension headaches.
Taking pain relievers is not the best tactic on the part of parents. These drugs only stop the attack, but in no way solve the problem, which leads to a recurrence of pain symptoms. Drugs are recommended to be given to the child only when the attack is not eliminated by other means, solely to relieve symptoms, that is, one-time, not on an ongoing basis. It is very important that the painkiller was prescribed by the doctor, since the means are different.
To relieve cephalalgia, adults take analgesics - "Analgin" and its derivatives, but for children they are contraindicated, as well as funds based on acetylsalicylic acid (Citramon, Aspirin - prohibited). Therefore, there are not so many drugs that can be given - these are non-steroidal anti-inflammatory "Ibuprofen" or "Paracetamol". They, in addition to the antipyretic effect, have a mild anti-inflammatory.
Doctors remind that unjustified use of drugs can lead to stomach upset, poisoning. First aid for a child always consists in creating conditions with a minimal annoying effect - the baby should lie in a darkened, well-ventilated room, in peace and quiet. If the cephalalgia is secondary, it is very important to establish its causes and only then proceed to treatment. It will depend on the specific diagnosis. By itself, no one will treat cephalalgia. This is just a symptom.
When the underlying disease is cured, it will go away on its own.
It is only important to know that if the child is sick, vomits, has low or high blood pressure, it is better not to take oral medications... Also, you should not give your child any pain relievers if you suspect a head injury, this can make it difficult for a traumatologist and neurologist to diagnose. If there is a bump, abrasion on the head, avoid any pills. If the child has diarrhea, he vomited with water, you should also not give medication, so as not to increase vomiting and diarrhea. A doctor should treat such children.
Features of children's cephalalgia
When we, adults, talk about a headache, we imagine it to ourselves in all its glory, as only we ourselves can feel it. But children do not feel such a headache. In the vast majority of cases, it is lighter in nature. Although no one denies the widespread occurrence of cephalalgia in childhood and adolescence.
It is noteworthy that in about 20% of adults who suffer from systematic chronic headache syndromes, the problem began in childhood - up to 10 years. Headaches rarely occur in children who have not reached the age of 3 years, but already at 5 years old, when preschool loads increase, cephalalgia occurs on an ongoing basis in about 35% of preschoolers. In elementary school, more than 60 people experience pain in the head of varying intensity:% of children aged 6 to 8 years and up to 54% of children aged 9 years and older.
Half of adults with chronic cephalalgia report that headache often started after 11-12 years of age, when active puberty began. Experts point out that the tendency to cephalalgia may be genetic. This means that if mom or dad had such a problem, then the child may face the same. Most often migraine is inherited.
Children are more mobile, they fall more often, get head and neck injuries, suffer from infectious viral and bacterial ailments, because they have weaker immunity due to age. Kids are meteosensitive, cannot stand loud sounds, they often play in the sun, and therefore there are more than enough reasons for headaches among the child population. It is very, very difficult to predict all the circumstances that can cause cephalalgia in a child.
For example, few people know that even the wearing of braces in adolescence, as well as the use of too tight, but fashionable hats, can cause quite severe and frequent pain attacks.
Do not write off the banal simulation, because it happens often. The child does not want to go to school or read a given book - he says that he has a headache, there is no desire to clean his room - he also has a headache.
Sometimes young children (up to 5-6 years old) say that they have a headache when they want to attract the attention of busy adults. They realized that neither mom nor dad had time to play with them, and if something hurts you, then attention is provided for you at least for a while, while mom and dad are figuring out the reasons for the invented symptom.
Reviews
Parents often face the problem of headaches in children. Most prefer to see a doctor, believing that they themselves cannot determine what is happening. And this is a very reasonable and correct position. Although pathological cephalalgias do not occur in children as often as common primary headaches, it is better to hear words of reassurance from a doctor than to guess anything on your own.
But there are those who habitually practice folk remedies. Such mothers are advised to relieve headache attacks in children with a piece of chocolate, tea with mint, motherwort, and a cold compress on the forehead. It should be recalled that folk advice and means can be applied within reasonable limits, but only after the doctor confirms that the child is healthy, he does not have tumors, vascular or neurological disorders, muscle and other problems.
