Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Headaches causing intermittent LDs?

http://www.mhni.com/faqs_headaches_and_memory.aspx

Are there any studies that look at the impact of pain on thinking?

Yes. A study to measure cognitive efficiency during migraine compared headache patients at baseline (when they did not have a headache) and then during a migraine. The results showed a significant drop in a patient's ability to perform on neurocognitive tests when they had a migraine. Other studies indicated similar results.

A study underway at MHNI indicates that headache sufferers have problems with thinking when they have a headache, and concentration and problem-solving can actually lead to an increase in headache pain.

I am thinking of sending this to the neuropsychologist that tested my son in one all day test even though he complained of fatigue and headache. There was a big difference in testing results from when my son was tested at age seven with no headache and at 11 with fatigue and headache, even though he still tested high on verbal with the headache. I told the neuropsychologist that the headaches affected others in our family in a similar way and she didn't seem to believe me.

I always made mathematical errors during migraines that I never made without the headaches. Errors like copying something wrong when the problem involved a lot of writing and I don't have dysgraphia like my son does. I have been working algebra problems during headaches to try to better understand what my son is dealing with. It is very frustrating to try to work through the pain. Most of the time I let him do something other than math when he has the headaches, but last week we had a lot of weather changes and we both had headaches almost every day so sometimes this is really hard to work around. His back pain also distracts him sometimes but it isn't as bad as the headaches. He can get up and move around to relieve that pain.

I'm wondering Lori. What is your goal? It sounds like you've already had experiences that convinced you that headaches cause problems and you've reached the conclusion that they affect academic performance. So, what now? How does finding articles about headaches being bad help your son? How does it lessen his pain or improve his chance of being successful in other academic environments? Do you see any risk that your focus on this may become a self fulfilling prophecy?

Perhaps the neuropsychologist should review the common clinical manifestations of migraine, which can include confusion and problems with vision, speech and language, not to mention nausea and sensitivity to light and sound, all of which will obviously impair performance on IQ and achievement tests.

I'd ask for my money back.

ETA: If you are looking for reasons to ignore the results of the testing that was given when your son had a migraine, I think you have plenty.

If you need valid recent testing results to get access to programming or services for your son, I'd find a different neuropysch, and explain the migraine issues ahead of time to be sure that the doctor would be flexible with scheduling testing and would stop as soon as a migraine or aura became evident.

Am I missing something? Is there really any question that there might be a significant drop in someone's ability to perform on neurocognitive tests when they had a migraine? I mean, really?

I will refrain from making any comment about the neuro-psych, but you should have seen some of the ones I've written and deleted already.

You can start to explain just how debilitating the headaches are, as you can contrast the scores with and without.

My goal is to help my son figure out how to work around his disabilities. Learning as much as we can about this disability helps us make decisions about things like extracurricular activities.

For example, my son is taking an MMA class. He wanted to learn all of it, including the boxing. He found that on some days he could handle the one hour class (although it left him exhausted because of his endurance issues) and other days when he was starting to get a headache his timing was just a little off and he would end up feeling like he was going to throw up. Timing being a little off is a problem when he is blocking punches. One day his sparring partner hit him in the face. My son told him it was okay and he continued with the lesson, but the guy felt bad about it. Also, the position my son had to stand in to do the boxing hurt his back (because of the scoliosis) but he could tolerate the back pain well enough to do what he needed to do for one hour.

My son didn't want his dad or anyone else to think of him as a quitter. He was trying his absolute best to do well and he felt good about being able to talk about MMA with other guys. MMA is considered a much more "manly" activity than musical theater and now that he is a teenager he is more concerned about what others think.

We decided, based partly on the information we found on how migraines, that it would be best for him to only do the Brazilian Jujitsu. My son knows that we do not see him as a quitter.

My husband talked to the instructor last night. He explained once again how the disabilities affected our son. The instructor said our son has a really good attitude and works very hard. He had seen a lot of kids who did not have a good attitude and said they are much harder to teach. He didn't want to see my son quit. But he also said it isn't fair to his sparring partner if he has to stop and take a break, so for now my son will only do BJJ.

My son is also continuing with musical theater where he continues to get lead roles that require a lot of memorization of lines, lyrics, and dance routines because he has a good attitude and works hard. He just takes breaks when he needs to and the director and the other kids understand this.

He is also continuing with piano lessons. He has been practicing almost every day and doing well, except of course when he has a migraine.

My son feels more confident about his ability to succeed knowing that he is not the only one experiencing the difficulties with the headaches. He knows there are others who are successful despite having to deal with them. I see this as a positive thing.

ITA with herenow. Anyone who doesn't think that a migraine would interfere with performance must be really lucky to have never experienced even a mild one! I guess some people might not believe that children can have them, though? IDK, seems obvious to me.

Lori,
If people in your family have headaches and they've still gone on with their lives your son has already seen that modeled. If he's experienced headaches and gone on he's developing strategies to do it. Take it for whatever it is worth, but I don't think it serves your son well for you to focus on trying find research that shows headaches are bad for cognitive performance. If anything it could be sending the message that you don't have confidence he can move forward in his life because you are still focused on trying to prove his test results should have been higher.

I think you'd all get a lot further right now by focusing on his specific needs and how you can begin to learn to cope with his disabilities and advocate for himself. Look to the future and focus on taking the steps he needs to take right now in order to be successful in college and in life.

We have had people tell us that they get migraines and they don't have these problems. They don't come out and finish that by saying "therefore, thinking problems cannot possibly be caused by migraines" but that is what they were implying.

I have another example of how the migraines affect my son's "performance." We take videos of my son's musical theater performances. The first two performances of Once Upon a Mattress went well, no problems, but he started getting a headache before the third. He took medication in time to take away most of the pain in time to do the show, but then it came time to do one of his big solos that had a lot of parts to it. During the song, the princess had to perform certain actions in response to the lyrics my son. who played the prince, had just sung. He accidentally skipped one of the parts and they both had to improvise so that the paying audience could not tell that anything had gone wrong. If I hadn't known how it was supposed to go, I wouldn't have noticed it at all. I told him this but he still felt bad about it. When we played back the video he saw all the parts where the other kids (who have no disabilities) had also messed up. It was the performers' ability to improvise that allowed the show to go on and be as good as the performances where there were no problems.

My son's ability to compensate for so many things is one of the reasons people have a hard time believing that he has disabilities. When you add ability to compensate to his very articulate speech and his ability to memorize and the way he somehow knows more about things that are happening in the news than a lot of adults because he reads a lot and looks up things he doesn't know, it is hard for people to believe he has any kind of learning disability.

I think I'd distinguish between headaches causing temporary recall and clarity issues vs. LDs that are always present. If he learns well (and it sounds like he does!) I'd call it a health impairment that limits performance rather than an LD.

It seems reasonable to me, if he needs standardized testing, to ask for accommodations (such as rescheduling if he has a migraine, or breaking it into smaller segments if he is in pain).

DeeDee

So, if I understand it correctly the central issue is that some "people" don't believe that he has disabilities? And, you are thinking that part of this is that your son compensates so well that he is successful in many different activities (and from what you've posted before he would prefer not to draw attention to focus on his disabilities or discuss them with other people.)

Who are the people who don't believe that your son has disabilities? Is it important they they be persuaded he does have disabilities and if so why? Do you think an article you found online will make a difference?