Teens may grow out of migraine attacks

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Migraine may disappear with age, according to new study.
Migraine is a painful and disabling condition that often starts in childhood or early adolescence. But there's good news for kids affected by migraine - you may well grow out of it, according to researchers at the University of Palermo in Sicily.

They screened all children aged 11-14 in the town of Monreale and found 55 with migraine at the start of the study. Ten years later, 38 per cent of this group no longer had headaches. Another 20 per cent had tension-type headache, rather than migraine.

However, this still means that 42 per cent of the group still had migraine ten years on. Those who had a parent or sibling with migraine were seven times more likely to continue having migraine than those who did not have a family history of the condition. Other findings from this study contrast with previous work - such as the discovery that girls are no more likely to continue with migraine than boys. And the age at which migraine attacks started did not influence the likelihood of their continuing.

Source
Neurology 24th October 2006

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