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American Morning

Study Finds Headaches Prevalent in Children

Aired April 24, 2001 - 10:49   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A new study finds headaches are prevalent in children. We're talking about migraine headaches.

CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now.

He's new to our crew. I just met him for the first time.

Welcome aboard.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Let's talk about why so many kids are having migraines now.

GUPTA: Researchers actually studied this. They studied 577 kids between the ages of eight and 18. These are already children that were having headaches and visiting the clinic for that.

What they found was very interesting: More than a third of the children suffered from chronic daily headaches. That is at least 15 headaches a month -- 92 percent of which were migraine headaches. The study also found that nearly 44 percent had daily headaches; 37 percent had frequent, but not daily, headaches; and 20 percent of these kids had continuous headaches.

Migraine headaches are vascular headaches that can cause severe pain, nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light and noise. In children, these headaches can last about two to three hours, whereas migraine headaches in adults can last about 12 hours.

Experts say headaches in children are treatable, but they're easier to treat if diagnosed early.

PHILLIPS: Very good.

You can check it out on our Web site.

Sanjay, thanks so much.

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