The child has a headache: what to do
'12.04.2019'
Source: Passion.ru
Perhaps the baby just got tired or overheated in the sun, but recurrent headache, especially when it appears abruptly, is a dangerous symptom that needs attention.
Children sometimes complain of headaches, and parents, without a moment's hesitation, go to the first-aid kit for a syrup or an anesthetic pill, give it to the child and forget about the problem, writes PASSION.
Such a frivolous attitude to headaches in children is fraught with sad consequences. After all, a headache is not a disease, it is a symptom, a kind of signal to the body about malfunctions. Perhaps the baby just got tired or overheated in the sun, but recurrent headache, especially when it appears abruptly, is a dangerous symptom that needs attention.
Some statistics
Headache complaints are the second most “popular” after abdominal pain in children. And not only grown-up children who can complain suffer from them, but also toddlers, even newborns.
Equivalents of headaches in infants can be considered increased crying, agitation, vomiting, sleep disorders and regurgitation of the fountain. In a year or two, children can talk about fatigue instead of headache complaints, they want to lie down and need attention.
It is estimated that up to 40% of girls and 30% of school-age boys periodically complain of headaches.
About the nature of the problem
Headache, or cephalgia, in children can be divided into two fairly large groups:
- organic pain due to volumetric or infectious processes in the head (meningitis, encephalitis, cysts, tumors or impaired outflow of cranial fluid),
- Functional pains - due to impaired blood supply to the brain as a result of diseases of internal organs, fatigue, or any other reasons leading to irritation of pain receptors in the vessels of the head.
In children, the most common causes of headaches are, above all, migraine, infections of a general nature - SARS, pneumonia, kidney infections, digestion, and infections of the nervous system. In addition, headache can be a symptom of mental disorders, neurosis, migraine, traumatic brain injury. These reasons, fortunately, do not arise very often.
Usually, a child’s head aches for more trivial reasons: prolonged stress, emotional stress, exorbitant exertion, too short or very long sleep, very long sitting at a computer or watching TV, problems in school or family.
Can cause quite severe overwork headaches due to sports, poor nutrition, especially among teenage girls who want to lose weight. Headache can also be a sign of food allergies - milk, cheese or chocolate.
If the head hurts from tension
Due to fatigue, overwork and tension, the headache of children hurts most often - usually it happens on emotional days, when the weather changes, after school or exams, from sitting in front of the monitor.
Usually, children describe it as a strong pressure from inside the skull, but, nevertheless, it is well tolerated, it does not deprive them of their activity and ability to do business. There is no nausea, no fever, it can go away after sleep or rest.
What should pay attention
If your child is still very young, he usually cannot complain of a headache or show the exact place where he has a pain. Then you can indirectly suspect a headache because of irritability, tearfulness, anxiety, the baby can rub your head against you, apply it to you in the palm of your hand. If you have a headache, the whites of the eyes may turn red and yawning may occur.
Older children may complain of a headache, and you should always respond to their complaints, not considering their simulation.
In schoolchildren, the causes of recurrent headaches are usually fatigue. But if such pains still do not go away even after resting or sleeping, they are systematic, they prevent the child from learning and relaxing - this is a reason for the examination.
Plan the day of the child so that he has time to rest after school hours, but not at the computer, but on the street or in training, although there, too, should not be zealous. It is important to reasonably and moderately combine mental work, chores and sports.
During headaches, stay with the child, but do not turn his pain into something supernatural, otherwise the child will begin to use his painful position. Headache is a subjective sign, it can be simulated.
Headache Emergency
Sometimes the occurrence of a headache is a serious symptom of anxiety and requires urgent consultation with a doctor or an ambulance call. These are the following states:
- sudden headache with vomiting, nausea, fever, cramps, loss of consciousness or weakness in the limbs;
- severe headache after falling, hitting his head, injury;
- severe headache with otitis or sinus;
- headache with bleeding from the nose;
- headaches in the morning, after exercise, after rest.
How to remove a headache
In cases where a child complains of a headache, and there are no other manifestations in the form of nausea or the symptoms described above, you can give him a light anesthetic "Nurofen" or paracetamol in half the dose, and put the child on the bed. Usually this is enough for the headache to pass.
You can not give aspirin, analgin, tsitramon and any other "adult" means to relieve headaches - for children up to 12 - they negatively affect the blood and stomach of the child.
How to examine children
If there are recurring headaches, parents should take the child to an appointment with a pediatrician or a neurologist, although the ENT doctor and an ophthalmologist will then be included in the examination.
It will be necessary to pass general tests - blood and urine: this will eliminate anemia and infections. And then conduct encephalography, ultrasound of internal organs and other studies, up to computed tomography and magnetic resonance with suspected volumetric processes of the head. If necessary, the child will even be admitted to hospital for treatment.
However, we hasten to reassure parents: in the overwhelming majority of cases, headache attacks have the simplest causes - stress, fatigue, excessive exercise, anemia, or eating disorders. With their correction headache quickly disappears.
