has chronic daily headaches with a migraine component

My name is Lesley and my 11 year old son has chronic daily headaches with a migraine component.We have been battling these headaches for years now. The last year and a half, the headaches have increased exponentially. We have gone through a whole host of preventatives and abortives. The abortives dont abort and the preventatives don't prevent. He is on 300mg a day of neurontin and 80mg of inderol per day. We are trying to wean off the inderol. He was up to 160mg per day of that. We took a vacation from analgesics to see if he was having rebound headaches. It didn't seem to help. Imitrex, midrin, fiorinal, fiorcet, ESGIC +,are just some of the abortives that we have tried. We are doing inderol, we have done periactin, depakote, nortriptylene, elavil and probably some others that I can't think of right now. His headaches have not responded much to anything. We are going to start an SSRI(Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor) today. It could be Paxil, prozac, effexor, zoloft. We shall see what the doc will prescribe. We are seeing a psychiatrist for the SSRI and a therapist to teach him pain management techniques. He does not want to see the therapist and I am not quite sure why. Well, I have rambled long enough. Can anybody see anything else that we can try.

I started suffering from migraines at age 6 and I'm sad to say that I have just now found relief, at age 38. That's not to say that your son won't find relief soon - the medical community has come a long way since the late 60's. I can only guess that your sons lack of enthusiasm for pain management therapy would be because he feels that biofeedback and relaxation techniques are a waste of time - and how do they expect it to work. He may feel that these are simple solutions to a very complex and painful problem. He may feel that he is not being taken seriously by his doctors. I am probably way off base here and I apologize if I have offended you or made you feel like you are not validating him. That is not what I mean - while I'm sure you are doing everything you can and more, I know how I felt as a young child with migraines and how my docs tried to pin it on everything but what it was.

Hi,I just wanted to say that certainly is a long list of medications to try! No wonder he and you are discouraged! I am 39, have tried all the meds you have listed and more...now my 7-year-old daughter is having headaches and migraines daily...I am on something called Topamax, have found this to be the only thing, along with Elavil, to help the headaches down to 1-2 per week.

With children, though, I am just learning what works. Certainly, the OTC meds don't seem to help. I inadvertenly gave her Compazine 12.5 mg when she was very sick on a field trip last week with the heat and the bus trip and that REALLY helped! But the M.D. later said that I could have caused a seizure doing that, so much for helping!

It is really hard being a headache sufferer, I never was one until the last 5 years...I have been diagnosed with intractible migraines. Now it is worse watching my daughter have headaches...she doesn't get through a day of school without one usually. She can't go to CampFire Girls, because it is too loud and hurts her head. She can't ride the bus, because it hurts her head. She just had adenoids removed and tubes placed, I thought that this would cure her headaches, thinking it was sinus pressure-related. So it really impacts her life. And the pediatrician really never calls back. They have given her codeine/Tylenol, which I don't want to give her...so now they are sending us to Children's Hospital in Boston for neurology work-up. But not for 3 mos! She wears glasses. She has a snack at school. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the headaches. The heat seems to make it worse, as it does for me. Esgic Plus