Not Another Problem!

Tomorrow is the first day of school and Andy was doing fine and getting ready for the big day. Then he started to develop terrible eye pain. He couldn't see and within a half an hour he was having massive head pain. I can't believe it! What else can go wrong! I do believe he is having a migraine. My older son started about this time and now my youngest son has it too.

I am thinking the 21 bananas a week that have been going into the high calorie smoothies may be suspect. It's the one thing I thought he could tolerate and now I am going to have to find something else that he can have. This is maddening. He really needs the calories and I don't think he can handle the other fruits but I am going to have to try them.

I have a ton of errands to do too. I just called my husband and he is coming home for a couple of hours to take care of Andy so that I can get these other things done. It's nice that my husband is the boss and can come and go as he needs.

I hope Andy comes out of it in a few hours. If it lasts until tomorrow, he will have to miss the first day of school. I may have to put him on cyproheptadine, an antihistamine that my older son took and it controlled his migraines really well.

I was just reading that there is a connection between the IBS and migraines. Guess I will have to do more research on that.

The pain of a Migraine in more ways than one

I wrote briefly about migraines in the last post and I thought I should elaborate more on my older son's condition. It started back in 7th grade, he began to have massive head pain, blurred vision and numbing in his arm. We ended up in the ER . Of course, we thought my son was having a stroke, it turned out to be his first migraine. Then about twice a month thereafter, he would get one and would literally be vomiting and in such excruciating pain, crying and incapacitated for hours. My kids are the type that don't cry at the drop of a hat so if they were crying, the pain had to be pretty intense. Our doctor wanted him to take a certain drug that stops migraines after they begin. I didn't want to use it. My son is an athlete and I had read some athletes have died while on this stuff because it can cause heart problems and other bad side effects. We took him to a neurologist and he suggested that he go on cyproheptadine, an antihistamine that has been around for years and has been known to help with migraines. Well it didn't work. Then we started watching what my son ate. Eliminated it from his diet, it didn't work either. Finally I read a book called, "Heal Your Headache, by David Buchholz. It was an amazing book and really gave me understanding on how to treat migraines. To make another long story short, migraines can be managed by diet or drugs or both. He gives the example of a cup filling up and when it's full that's when the migraine begins. This explains why some things trigger it one time and then not the next, the cup is not full yet. Keep adding triggers, the cup gets full and then the migraine occurs. My son had to be on the cyproheptadine and have certain foods eliminated from his diet, either alone was not enough. His main triggers were cheese, cooked fresh pizza dough, caffeine in pop, and physical exercise was a big one. We almost had 100% control of his migraines after a year. Now, several years later, my son's migraines are almost non existent and he is off the drugs and diet.

Another Adventure in the ER

It seems that we can't stay out of the ER. One of my boys gets sick or seriously injured at least once a year. My youngest son was having terrible stomach cramps and spending lots of time in the bathroom, actually for over 7 days. It was getting progressively worse , to the point where he was in such pain that he was doubled over. It's tough being a parent and having to watch you kid suffer like that. Anyway, to make a long story short, we spent the typical 2 to 2.5 hours in the ER waiting to be seen and then another 1 .5 hours being examined, tested and etc. Didn't get home til 1 am. Tests came back negative. Diagnosis undetermined. This is nothing new, my son has been having stomach trouble off and on for about 3 years. He started missing a lot of school in the beginning. Took him to the doctor several times, finally went 3 hours away to Children's hospital to see a pediatric gastroenterologist. They told me they see hundreds of kids per week with this same problem and basically it's like irritable bowel syndrome.

I have done a lot of reading on irritable bowel and actually my son's stomach problems were better until now. I'm also looking into food allergies too as a possible cause. It's going to take a lot of detective work and I have to believe that we will be able to manage this. My older son had terrible migraines and I did a lot of research on it and found out how to manage it to the point where he was hardly having any. It's hard to listen to your child when he is in so much pain and he's telling you that he just wants to be normal and he can't imagine living his life like that. It just tears you up inside.