Headache in a child as a symptom of disease

Many adults do not even admit that a child can have a headache, taking his whims for manipulation. But children, just like adults, are susceptible to this ailment and the sources that cause it can be different.

How does the discomfort in question manifest itself and what can be done to correct the situation? Parents try to find clear and understandable answers to these and many other questions.

In many ways, the nature and localization of pain can indicate what source is causing the pathology. It can be aching, pulsating - spasmodic, squeezing like a ring from the outside and bursting from the inside. Pain attacks can worsen in the morning or at night, after lunch or throughout the day.

The location of its localization can also suggest the source of the problem. Discomfort can be observed on one side of the head, for example, pulsating in the left temple, or encircling. It can manifest itself in the occipital or parietal part, and so on.

The increase or decrease of pathological intensity may also depend on the position of the body: whether it is lying down or located vertically.

A clue to determining the source of the pathology may be accompanying negative symptoms: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, fever, and others.

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Headache and vomiting in a child

In most cases, when an infection enters the baby's body, he begins to complain of discomfort in the head area, nausea and vomiting reflexes, and other symptoms of the disease appear. If vomiting increases and the baby refuses to drink, you should immediately call an ambulance.

The combination of such symptoms as pain syndrome and vomiting in children is almost always an indication for hospitalization, since such a tandem in most cases indicates an inflammatory process occurring in the brain structures. If medical care is not provided in a timely manner, the consequences can be irreversible and the most severe, even fatal.

This is especially true for small children, since all pathological processes in them, including dehydration due to vomiting, develop much more rapidly than in adults.

If a son or daughter complains of headaches, and adults observe vomiting, then in such a situation it is necessary to measure the baby's body temperature. If it is normal, then migraine and hypertension can be ruled out, while the likelihood of a head injury increases.

It is worth asking your son or daughter in more detail whether there were any falls or bruises? Examine the head for abrasions, hematomas and wounds.

Headache and nausea in a child

If the baby feels nauseous and complains of pulsating pain symptoms, then most likely the baby has a disease, mainly caused by a hereditary predisposition, such as migraine.

It is caused by a sharp disruption of the tone of the walls of blood vessels that have undergone expansion. In this case, the blood is unable to systematically fill the resulting volume, which leads to blood pulsations.

Mostly, such symptoms are one-sided. This disease is observed in attacks. In between painful contractions, the baby feels satisfactory.

When an attack occurs, the baby starts to act up, he becomes sleepy and irritable, and “flying midges” may appear before his eyes. Painful sensations in the head and nausea in children can also cause quite profuse vomiting. After the stomach contents are released, the baby calms down somewhat and falls asleep.

In such a situation, painkillers are powerless. The attack can last from a quarter of an hour to two hours. In such a situation, the baby should be shown to a neurologist.

But such a combination of symptoms can also indicate an infectious invasion. This diagnosis is more likely in the presence of high body temperature. Meningitis is especially dangerous among infectious lesions. This disease develops against the background of bacterial, viral or fungal lesions of the brain membrane and is characterized by a fairly high percentage of deaths, especially in young children. Therefore, if parents observe such symptoms, it is necessary to immediately seek medical help by calling an ambulance. In this situation, the life of a small person can "hang by a thread" and the final result depends on the timeliness of medical care. Sometimes every minute counts.

Also, in connection with the severe form of infectious disease, one should recall poliomyelitis, encephalitis and a number of other pathologies.

Severe headache in a child

In a newborn (around 6 months), severe attacks can be caused by milk teeth erupting during this period. Such a baby is constantly capricious and sleeps poorly. But after the tooth has emerged, the annoying spasm usually passes. Painful pulsations in the head can also be provoked by gum inflammation, dental abscess, inflammation of the trigeminal or facial nerve.

But this is not the only source of the pathology in question. High intensity of the symptom in question in children can be provoked by many other reasons. One of them has already been considered in the previous section – this is an infectious lesion of the meninges, causing the development of meningitis, encephalitis, poliomyelitis.

Acute attacks can also be provoked by ENT diseases such as otitis, rhinitis, sinusitis and others. As surprising as it may sound, such a symptom can also be a consequence of an intestinal infection or worm infestation.

A head injury is possible, accompanied by a concussion, damage to bone tissue...

It is also a symptom of arterial hypertension, intracranial or intraocular pressure.

Some external factors can trigger an attack:

• Experiences for some reason, fear, neuroses.
• Poisoning by chemical compounds.
• Magnetic storms, weather changes. Sadly, many modern children are meteopaths from birth.

Therefore, if the baby is bothered by the pathology in question, which is accompanied (or not) by other symptoms, it is worth consulting a specialist and, if necessary, undergoing a full examination to establish the cause of the pathology.

Frequent headaches in a child

It is quite difficult to understand what is bothering a baby when he is not yet able to clearly express his thoughts. He is sick, he is capricious and pulls his hands to his head. If the baby has frequent pain attacks, doctors are already talking about a chronic course of the disease. Sometimes the changes that affect the blood vessels of the brain and other internal organs are already irreversible.

Frequent pains may bother the baby at the time of teething, but they pass with their appearance. The situation is more difficult if this is the result of a birth injury (displacement of the cervical vertebrae) or a congenital disease and until the situation gets better, the baby will have to endure attacks. But they can be weakened or the pain symptom itself can be relieved by medications that should be prescribed only by a specialist. You should not give your child medications on your own and thoughtlessly, you can only harm the child's still fragile body.

Daily headaches in a child

If discomfort causes suffering almost daily, doctors check the question of the presence of pathological changes in the body of a small patient, the presence of an injury. But such a pathology can also be a consequence of an improperly organized daily routine:

• Keeping children in a stuffy, unventilated room for a long time.
• A short period of time that a toddler or teenager spends outdoors.
• Unregulated relationship between sleep and rest time, physical activity and wakefulness.
• Improper nutrition, poor in vitamins and minerals.
• Spending long periods of time at the computer.
• Heavy workload at school.
• Increased physical activity (school + sports, music, etc.).
• A difficult psychological situation in the family.

By analyzing their child’s daily routine, every parent can eliminate many of the above points.

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Dizziness and headache in a child

One of the main reasons, if we do not consider pathological deviations of an organic nature, the consequence of which is the pathology under consideration observed in children and attacks of dizziness, can be called overwork of the little person.

Many parents try to raise their child to be a child prodigy and a genius almost from birth, loading them with various activities: sports section, English language, school of aesthetic development, dancing.

All this is of course good, who argues about the harmonious development of the baby. But if children do not have time to just run around outside with their peers, then sooner or later, the body of the "future child prodigy" may fail. Both increased physical and psychological stress are fraught with serious consequences for a still growing and developing person. Therefore, everything should be in moderation.

A difficult situation in the family, complicated relationships between parents can also cause nervous exhaustion, accompanied by the symptoms under consideration, leading even to loss of consciousness. After all, a small person feels this on a subconscious level, experiencing this fact in his own way.

Quite sharp and strong smells can provoke an attack. If the baby has such a reaction to the aroma, it is necessary to eliminate it as quickly as possible.

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Forehead headache in children

As already mentioned above, the localization of the discomfort can be a clue to the doctor for a presumptive diagnosis. Thus, the negative symptoms that bother the little patient in the frontal area are caused by the following diseases:

• Sinusitis is an inflammation of the paranasal sinuses, developing as a complication of an infectious disease. If, against the background of prolonged pain in the forehead, prolonged rhinitis is added, then the likelihood of developing this pathology increases significantly.
• The infectious pathology itself.
  • A common cold.
  • Pneumonia.
  • Rubella.
  • Severe meningitis.
  • Different strains of flu.
  • Typhus and others.
• Frontitis is one of the types of sinusitis. The inflammatory process affects the frontal sinus, which provokes the discomfort. It is especially bothersome in the morning. After the baby blows his nose, the pain subsides somewhat, but with the next filling of their mucus - it returns with renewed vigor.
• High intraocular or intracranial pressure.
• Head trauma, which entails not only pain symptoms, but usually other pathological abnormalities.

You should show your baby to a doctor to avoid missing any serious pathology.

Night headaches in a child

If parents notice that their child sleeps poorly, is bothered by night attacks, but does not complain about them during the day, then it is worth analyzing the environment in which the night is spent.

• Perhaps you are sleeping in a stuffy room with low humidity.
• The reason is an uncomfortable bed and bedding.
• Indoor flowers that emit a strong scent.
• Scary night sounds.

Nosebleed and headache in a child

One of the reasons that first comes to mind in relation to a baby, when he has a combination of symptoms such as nosebleeds and painful attacks, is trauma. But such a tandem can also appear as a symptom or a complication factor for other diseases:

• Pathological damage to ENT organs.
• Juvenile hypertension.
• Infectious or viral vascular lesion, ongoing inflammatory process.
• Anemia.
• Intoxication due to poisoning of the body with toxins (of various origins).
• And some other sources.

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Headache in the back of the head in a child

This localization of pathology has several sources:

• An infectious lesion of a specific area of the cerebral cortex.
• Freezing of the body.
• Pressure surges that provoke the development of a pre-fainting condition may be caused by increased formation of cerebrospinal fluid, a liquid product that acts as a brain protection, but its excess volumes begin to put pressure on the brain.
• Spasms and muscle cramps.
• It is possible that there is an organic neoplasm present that, in a certain position, compresses the vessel.
• Increased intracranial pressure.

Therefore, if the discomfort in the occipital region is caused by the above-mentioned sources, then some of them can be easily eliminated on your own, but there are also those that require urgent medical intervention.

Vascular headache in children

As the name suggests, vascular pathology, both in children and adults, is a consequence of reversible or irreversible damage to the walls of blood vessels that feed the brain.

This pathological discomfort is caused by:

• Vegetative-vascular dystonia.
• Congenital or hereditary pathology of the development of brain vessels.
• Vasculitis is an inflammatory process that affects blood vessels.

Headache in a child with ARVI

One of the most common sources of the pathology in question is acute respiratory viral infection (or ARVI for short). This category of diseases includes many pathologies, but the most diagnosed are various strains of influenza and tonsillitis caused by the activity of pathogenic microorganisms. Although this list is much longer.

It is with the appearance of pain symptoms that the diseases of the group in question begin to manifest themselves. They have largely similar symptoms and a similar treatment structure. But still, the expected therapeutic effect can only be achieved if the correct diagnosis is made and adequate measures are taken.

Diagnosis of headaches in children

After the parents have sounded the alarm and sought advice from a doctor - a pediatrician. The doctor will definitely conduct diagnostics and, if clinically indicated, can refer the little patient for additional consultation and examination to a more specialized specialist. This can be one of the pediatricians: cardiologist, dentist, otolaryngologist, ophthalmologist, neurologist.

• First, the doctor must find out the patient's medical history.
• Were there any falls?
• What is the frequency of attacks: “from time to time” or frequent, constant?

Localization area:

• Encircling.
• In the occipital region.
• Frontal part.
• One or both temples.

Nature of manifestations:

• Pulsating - spasmodic.
• Squeezing around the entire perimeter like a hoop.
• On the contrary, it seems to be bursting from the inside.
• Sharp or dull, aching.
• Capturing one side or manifesting itself everywhere.

What is the intensity: high, medium or light?

• Duration of attacks?
• Are there any precursors to an attack that occur immediately before it? For example, the appearance of irritability or weakness, drowsiness, and so on.
• Is there a connection with the seasons, weather conditions, time of day, or attachment to a specific place? For example, if the attack begins after a short stay in a stuffy room, or the son / daughter complains of feeling unwell immediately before a thunderstorm. Perhaps the attacks are not related to these factors.
• Does the emotional state of a toddler or teenager change?
• What accompanying symptoms are observed: nausea, bleeding from the nose, high body temperature, vomiting, fever, drowsiness, irritability and others.
• Does the pain intensity increase when climbing stairs, doing physical exercise, or during a light jog?
• Is there a spontaneous (independent) resolution of the problem or are there other methods that can relieve the attack?
• The accuracy of the diagnosed disease, the effectiveness of the prescribed treatment and, accordingly, the final result depend on how complete the picture the doctor receives.

For children in primary, middle and high school, there are also additional questions:

• How stress-resistant is your son/daughter? How much do they worry about lessons and relationships with peers?
• How do you cope with the mental stress of school?
• How much time is allocated for sleep?
• Do you have enough time to play outdoors?
• How emotional is he?
• What is his diet and feeding schedule?
• How often does he get physically tired?
• If we take a time period (week, month). How many times were complaints about the discomfort in question received?
• Time spent on the computer or watching TV?
• Are there any additional mental or physical activities after school?

The doctor should also know whether the parents have been suffering from the symptoms in question and for how long?

Fundamental answers to the questions posed by the doctor will already allow the specialist to determine the most likely source causing the discomfort.

For example, if the attacks have started recently and are increasing in intensity, accompanied by fever, drowsiness, nausea, then it is possible to assume a viral trace of the disease, which can lead to a condition that is dangerous to the life of the little patient.

The local pediatrician usually prescribes blood, urine and stool tests. In special cases, magnetic resonance imaging or other, more specific studies may be required, which are additionally prescribed by narrowly specialized specialists.

Once the diagnosis is determined, the doctor prescribes treatment for the child's headache. The treatment protocol will correspond to the source that is established. You can read more about this in the article "What to give a child for a headache?"

Many parents consider the pathology in question to be the prerogative of adults, not even admitting that it can cause suffering to children. But this is not so. Unfortunately, headaches in children are a fairly common pathology that must be recognized and eliminated as early as possible. And this is the prerogative of adults. You should be more attentive to your children and their complaints. Perhaps the whole problem lies in an incorrectly composed daily routine, organized children's space or nutrition, then the parents themselves can eliminate the cause. But it is quite possible that this symptom is a manifestation of one of the many pathologies, then you cannot do without the help of a qualified specialist. The main thing in such a situation is not to waste precious time!

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