Does your child suffer from stomach pain and vomiting without a clear cause? If digestive and other stomach related issues have been ruled out, your youngster might be having abdominal migraines.

Abdominal Migraine Symptoms

Does your child have tummy pain and then it’s followed by vomiting? Or, is there nausea and your baby’s face becomes very pale? The pain generally feels dull or sore and can be moderate to severe. It hurts enough to keep him/her from regular daily tasks.
Your youngster can be healthy in every way and then, bam, out of the blue, it strikes. Dizziness and lethargy usually accompany the other symptoms, too. Abdominal migraines can attack and then disappear for weeks, only to return at a later date.

What is an Abdominal Migraine?

Abdominal migraines are suffered by infants youngsters and teens. They tend to emerge between the ages of 3 and 10 years. They’re equivalent to their severe-headache cousin, but cause pain, dizziness, and cyclical vomiting. Abdominal Migraine is more common in those with a family history of head migraines. Different sources suggest somewhere between three and 15 percent of kids get them.

Triggers

Your child wakes up from what was considered a good night’s sleep. And now she’s complaining of cramps in her belly. She feels nauseous getting dressed for school. She comes to the breakfast table but says she doesn’t want to eat. She finally has a piece of toast and a minute later she’s vomiting.

Head migraines can be triggered by not eating regularly, dehydration, changes in the weather, and stress. The same is true for abdominal ones. There can be, however, a host of other triggers for kids. Some are: worrying about a test at school, a field trip, or even a family vacation. Eating too fast or car sickness can cause stomach uneasiness.

Certain foods can also be culprits/triggers. Some include: chocolate, cheese, citrus fruits, foods that contain MSG (Chinese food, snack chips, soups), foods with preservatives (hot dogs, cold cuts, and other processed kid-unfriendly snacks.)

The Good News

Abdominal migraines rarely persist into adulthood. They may be a precursor to developing head migraines later in life, but at least the anorexia, nausea, and vomiting should subside. Practicing stress-reducing techniques are a natural way to avoid or suppress migraines. Of course, sometimes external causes are out of our control (like the weather.) But by removing yourself and your child from certain foods, glaring lights, noisy places, and otherwise stressful scenarios, you can help cut down on the occurrences if your family is prone to these pains in-the-head or -tummy.