(Newswire.net — February 7, 2017) — Are frequent headaches disrupting your daughter’s social, family and school life? About 1% to 2% of teens suffer from headaches more than 15 days per month. These headaches are termed as chronic daily headaches and are considered to be a form of migraine. Can you imagine the impact on grades and behaviors a headache can have? This is serious because as a parent you want to get them the best help as quick as possible. Typically you will begin treatment with your child’s pediatrician. It is the right choice to rule out any organic causation such as diet, thyroid or metabolic abnormalities. Your daughter will probably receive a script for beta blockers, tricylic antidepressants, or calcium channel blockers. Just as an adult with her weight being factored in for dosage. Young women my develop signs of depression as a side effect of beta blockers, and it can go unnoticed unless the parents are watching the young lady for subtle changes in her behavior. Tricylic antidepressants are usually safe and effective, but you should monitor your daughter for any signs of cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), which is a side effect.
Adolescents, like adults can benefit from comprehensive approach to headache management that combines drug and non-drug strategies. This is where you will need to be your daughter’s advocate mainly because she will only receive medical advice from her primary doctor. In today’s highly specialized world of medicine, your daughter will get medicine. Rarely will you get alternative advice on non-drug therapies from your daughters’s medical doctor. Hopefully this article will shed some light on alternatives that can help your daughter eliminate her headaches.
Chiropractic care can be an effective tool in eliminating chronic daily headaches. Proper alignment of the head and neck are vital to allow normal functioning of the brain. Irritation from a subluxed head and neck can be the cause of your daughter’s problem. Here is why, the brainstem controls the flow of messages between the brain and the rest of the body. Some of the brain stem’s functions include basic functions such as breathing, swallowing, heart rate, blood pressure, consciousness, and whether one is awake or sleepy. If your daughter has a narrowing of the opening where the brain stem passes through she can have terrible headaches as a result of the interruption in the normal flow of messages between the brain and the rest of the body. It would make sense that if the opening is stenotic any medication would be palliative at best. Compounding the headaches is the risk of side effects on the adolescent female. By choosing to medicate you are limiting the opportunity to resolve the chronic daily headache.
There are several modalities along with the chiropractic adjustment that can speed the resolution of the headaches. Acupuncture should not be overlooked. It has been around for way to long to be ignored. Acupuncture has the added benefit of virtually no side effects that present with drug therapy alone. In recent years the application of Cold Laser therapy has been shown to help calm the trigeminal nerve involvement. While no one can point to actual cause of chronic daily headaches, it is widely believed that the large cranical nerve is responsible for migraines. New studies are underway to evaluate the effectiveness in eliminating migraines.
The more you understand about what can possibly help your daughter the better her response to treatment should be. The advice provided here is not meant to replace your daughter’s primary physician. The primary doctor is probably not versed in alternative headache solutions. It has been my experience that your child may receive Botox over more natural alternatives that have no side effects. Botox for adolescents are recommended after two preventive drugs fail to work. This is ridiculous when non-drug alternatives exist. But you won’t receive this advice unless you are a strong advocate for your daughter.
Educating yourself has never been easier. The web has plenty of information to help you decide what is best to help your daughter get the relief she needs. Start by searching right after she is cleared medically. This is not to suggest that you forgo the advice of your daughter’s primary care provider. If the medications stop the headaches you will have no need to go further. Hopefully, that is the case. There are many Facebbok groups that you can find to augment your search for help. While the Facebook groups will offer anecdotal help it may be just what you need.