Causes and risk factors
Headache can be caused by a variety of causes. These causes can be mild to serious ones. Upper respiratory tract infections are the most common cause of headaches in children. Any infection of the ear, blocking of sinuses due to coryza contribute to the causation. Migraine is another common contributing causation. Tension and emotional upsets, stress regarding studies, family conflicts, and some sports can also lead to headache. Visual problems is another most common condition leading to headaches. Headache can also be caused due to allergy or sensitivity to certain substances like perfumes, certain food substances or medications. Menstruation in girls can also cause headache. Certain severe causes like head injury and brain tumor are some of the serious causes of headache.
Clinical presentation
Headache in children can be of different type’s illness or injury related headaches, tension headache, migraine, cluster headaches and chronic daily headaches. The child comes up with complaints of pain in head. The location can be different in different children. The patients complaints of sever throbbing pain. It can last from 2 hours to 72 hours. The symptoms vary from patient to patient. It can be associated with other symptoms like nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, vertigo or nasal congestion. Psychological disturbances e.g.: irritability, anxiety, confusion occurs.
Investigations:
Headache is usually diagnosed on the basis of the symptoms. We need to enquire about the history of any injury, or certain medications.Oplthalmic examination is carried out. Certain investigations can be done for differentiating the other diseases or find out the causation, these are routine blood test, lumbar puncture for examining the CSF or in severe cases when associated with some doubtful symptoms brain scans can also be done.
Treatment
The treatment plan depends upon the underlying cause and type of headache. It aims for controlling the triggering factors, to treat the acute attack and to prevent the recurrence of episodes. Visual disturbances if present needs to be corrected. Administration of pain relieving medications or non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs is the only line of treatment. In severe cases like brain injury close monitoring is necessary.
Other modes of treatment:
Certain other modes of treatment can also be helpful in coping up the symptom. Taking into consideration the symptoms in holistic way, homoeopathy can offer a good aid for the relief of the symptoms. The Ayurvedic system of medicine which uses herbs and synthetic derivates can also be beneficial in combating the complaints.
