Researchers Find that Headaches May Be Learned

Many teenagers find that at one point or another, "Parents can be a real pain."

While this may be a joke sometimes, a new study has found that teenagers who experience chronic migraine headaches regard their own pains as more serious than those of others. Researchers now believe that the degree of pain at which teens experience it at, is actually variably dependent upon their own parents' responses to their own pain.

According to LiveScience, Ann Pakalnis, neurologist at Columbus Children's Hospital and a professor at Ohio State University College of Medicine, she says the goal of their research is to see "how much of a child's response to migraine pain is learned and how much is hereditary."

Migraines affect about 10 percent of children and adolescents in the United States. Out of that 10 percent, 2 percent have chronic migraines that hit them up to 15 times a month. Symptoms include throbbing head pain, nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light. The degrees of migraines range from light pain to extreme pain which can put people out for days.

Pakalnis and her team of researchers surveyed 20 teens from 12 to 17 years old that had chronic migraines, as well as their parents. In their study, they discovered that more than 90 percent of parents in the study reported at least one chronic-pain condition. Conditions range from migraines, to fibromyalgia which is widespread pain in a person's muscles and tissues.

At a meeting of the American Headache Society in Chicago, Paklnis and her team of researchers revealed that "Parents who reported greater disabilities due to chronic pain also had children that rated their migraines as more disabling than teens with no-chronic pain parents."

These results could mean much for treatment in headaches. Armed with this information, doctors can now fully assess teenage patients, and treat them effectively with the knowledge that their parents play a major role in their chronic migraines. From this, Pakalnis says that through this understanding of their individual level of pain, doctors can develop specialized individual treatments plans that best fit the adolescent's problem. As a positive effect, successful treatment at a younger age may mean fewer migraine problems in the future.

Teenagers model their parents in every way, including their responses to pain. To Pakalnis, she believes that "If they can intervene when the kids are younger, then they might adjust how they tolerate migraines in adulthood.

It's all in the head.

Jeanna Bryner. "Study of Teens Finds Parents Truly a Headache." Live Science. http://www.livescience.com/health/070607_parents_migraines.html