Sleep problems in kids with headache

Many children who suffer daily from chronic headaches also have difficulty getting a good night's rest. They are at risk for having sleep disturbances also. Researchers from the Rochester, Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic, conducted a study to investigate their observation that many children with headache also have sleep problems. They reviewed medical charts of 5- to 17-year-old children and adolescents who visited the clinic with complaints of headache. One hundred children experienced episodic headaches, occurring fewer than three times a week, and 100 had chronic headaches, occurring on at least 15 days per month for a minimum of three months. It was found that many of the children also experienced sleep disturbances along with their headaches. This was particularly true of children with chronic daily headache, about two thirds (67 percent) of whom experienced sleep disturbances. One fifth (20 percent) of children with episodic headaches reported sleep disturbances as well. The children also differed in the type of sleep disturbances that accompanied their headache. Children with chronic headache tended to awake frequently during the night and the early morning, whereas those with episodic headaches tended to have problems with snoring and symptoms of restless leg syndrome. Restless leg syndrome is characterised by aching, crawling or other uncomfortable sensations in the legs that worsen when a person is inactive, such as during sleep, and is often accompanied by involuntary leg twitching. Addressing such sleep disturbances early may help prevent children with infrequent episodic headaches from developing chronic headaches. It was also found that eight children progressed from experiencing occasional headaches to having chronic migraines during the course of the study. Half of them (or their families) reported that the sleep problems preceded the transition in headache type, but the other half were unable to differentiate between when the sleeping problems began and when the headaches became more frequent. The sleeping problem and the headache need to be treated at the same time to get improvement in either one of them. The researchers also stressed the importance of good sleep hygiene, including establishing a bedtime routine to help children get ready for bed, as an important way to help keep sleep problems from getting worse and to help prevent headache.