Many Kids Will Outgrow Migraines

MONDAY, Oct. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Many people who suffer migraines when they''re children or teens stop having them when they become adults, says an Italian study.

Researchers followed 55 youngsters, aged 11 to 14, who suffered migraines at the start of the study. Ten years later, 38 percent of them no longer had headaches of any kind, and another 20 percent no longer had migraines but still had less severe tension-type headaches.

The findings are in the Oct. 24 issue of Neurology.

"This is great news for children and teens who are dealing with migraine headache. Most of them will no longer have to deal with these disabling headaches by the time they are adults," study author Dr. Rosolino Camarda, a neurologist at the University of Palermo, said in a prepared statement.

The study also found that youngsters with parents or siblings who also had migraines were seven times more likely to still have migraines after 10 years than those with no close family members with migraines.

Unlike previous research, this study did not find that girls were more likely than boys to continue having migraines over the years or that people whose migraines began when they were younger were more likely to continue to have migraines.

This could be due to the small size of this study and the limited age range of the participants, Camarda said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about migraine.

-- Robert Preidt

SOURCE: American Academy of Neurology, news release, Oct. 23, 2006

Last Updated: Oct. 23, 2006

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