Helping Children With Migraines

Diet and Migraines in Children

As with any reoccurring medical issue, diet usually has an impact on the problem, if it isn’t causing the problem altogether. While you may want to seek medical attention, you can also try some of the natural solutions listed below to help alleviate the pain of a migraine as well as preventing further ones. In quite a few cases, a change in diet can eliminate the problem altogether, especially if your child is having migraines as a result of an unknown food allergy. To prevent future problems, try eliminating some of the foods below. Just to confirm that this works, I can tell you that my own son suffered terribly from migraines, right up until I eliminated or lowered the amounts he consumed of the foods listed below.

• Processed or aged meat or cheese - hot dogs and bologna are some of the biggest culprits of migraines. Try eliminating these from the diet of your child for two weeks and I guarantee you will see improvement!
• Caffeine - While some headaches can be alleviated by using caffeine, overconsumption of caffeine such as eating excess chocolate or certain sodas is known to cause migraines. Remember, your child has a much smaller system than you and cannot process the large amounts of these chemicals that you can.
• Brewer’s yeast
• Preservatives found in items such as pickles and certain snack foods - The chemicals that are used in preserving foods often causes headaches and migraines.
• Red dye - For some reason, red dye seems to be the ultimate culprit when it comes to health issues in children. While it may be because red dye is simply so commonly found in children’s foods or because of the properties of the dye itself, this is a good one to stay away from.

Really, it comes right down to feeding your children fresh foods with lots of fruits and vegetables in their diet. The presence of chemicals in our foods seems to be causing a smörgåsbord of health problems in people of all ages.

Alleviating the Pain of a Migraine

While some of these techniques may strike you as odd, I assure you that they really do work. I myself have used them with my own son.

1. Place the child in a dark and silent room if possible.
2. Place your hands on the front and the back of the child’s head on the utmost curves of both.
3. Gently apply pressure to the curves of the head. In essence, you are squeezing the head. Keep in mind you aren’t trying to hurt the child. But, if there is a swelling that causes the headache, this squeezing can often relieve some of the pressure.
4. If this is helpful to the child, try tying a bandanna around the child’s head to alleviate the pain using this pressure method.

There is another technique that can be used and honestly, it works better with children than with adults because children are more receptive to suggestions. I personally use this technique on myself to alleviate my own head pain.

1. This is most difficult to do when the headache or migraine is in full swing. Try to do this when the symptoms that a migraine is about to occur happen, such as seeing auras or getting dizzy.
2. Go in a quiet room or in a room with soothing sounds such as the sound of water in the background.
3. Get the child into a comfortable position.
4. Ask the child to close their eyes and try to relax.
5. Ask the child to visualize a very large ball of light. This light is the blinding pain of the migraine.
6. As they visualize the light, imagine that there is an invisible pressure on the light that is making it smaller and smaller.
7. The light eventually gets minuscule. At this point, imagine that the light actually implodes upon itself, thereby destroying the migraine.

Again, I realize that some people may shake their heads at these suggestions. As for myself, my son no longer has migraines and when he did, these were the techniques I used that worked for him and myself. They don’t cost anything but a little bit of time, so why not try them?

References: familydoctor.org