# Do children \[B\]\[I\]not\[/I\]\[/B\] get headaches? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 14, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-children-b-i-not-i-b-get-headaches/574705 "2011-03-14T21:51:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shinna_Minna_Ma)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-children-b-i-not-i-b-get-headaches/574705/21 "2011-03-15T14:19:36Z")
Sure they do. My middle daughter was in 4th grade when she started getting horrible headaches. It took our pediatrician and a neuro-ophthalmologist to figure out her blood sugar was low during the day. We sent her to school with extra snacks and juice, and that solved the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-children-b-i-not-i-b-get-headaches/574705/22 "2011-03-15T14:26:50Z")
Thanks all. Really, I’ve gotten headaches that just won’t go away sometimes, even if I take a painkiller or a nap. And I imagine if that happened to a child, they’d just go nuts. Then I realized I’d never had them as a kid, we’d take aspirins for fever (we didn’t know about Reye’s syndrome back then,) but I never had to alleviate a headache, or body ache with an analgesic, until I was older. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-children-b-i-not-i-b-get-headaches/574705/23 "2011-03-15T14:38:31Z")
Common causes of headaches: “Tension” headache Medication overuse headache\* Caffeine withdrawal headache Kids don’t really get those. Adults would also have cluster headaches, neck arthritis, trigeminal neuralgia and temporal arteritis as possible causes of headaches. Kids- less so. See your doctor about recurrent headaches- they can take a full history, run appropriate tests and decide if there is any cause for alarm. \*Using a painkiller like ibuprofen or paracetamol/acetominophen most days for as little as 2 weeks can actually cause headaches. You stop all painkillers, the headaches get worse, and then, hopefully, they get better. ---
**Author:** ![rhubarbarin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eb9ed0/32.png) [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-children-b-i-not-i-b-get-headaches/574705/24 "2011-03-15T15:24:37Z")
A lot of children get headaches. My migraines with aura started when I was 4. I’ve had tension headaches (and back and neck pain issues) as long as I can remember too. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-children-b-i-not-i-b-get-headaches/574705/25 "2011-03-15T15:32:47Z")
Oh! I was talking about this with some friends last month, so I really want to participate, but I’ve forgotten most of what they said. It was something along the lines of this: as we get older, our immune system gets more and more developed, so that when something harmful enters our body, our immune response is more severe as we age. That’s why a cold is far more miserable as a grown up than it was when we were a kid. If the headaches you get normally accompany a sickness or fever, this could be why. Unless you’re just referring to stress headaches. In that case, you probably just get more stressed now than you did back then. (As a point of reference, I got a headache every time I watched TV as a child. I believe that was because of eye strain, though, and got better when I was prescribed glasses at 8 years old.) ---
**Author:** ![MsChilePepper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MsChilePepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsChilePepper)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-children-b-i-not-i-b-get-headaches/574705/26 "2011-03-18T10:22:46Z")
I had some really gnarly headaches as a kid. I remember being VERY upset that the aspiring didn’t work instantaneously. When I got braces at age 15, the orthodontist said my upper jaw had quit growing when I was about six years old, and that was probably the cause of the headaches. I wore a palatal expander for about nine months, which gradually widened the palate and gave my teeth room to move into place. Those sorts of headaches ended after that. Now I get migraines. Yayyy. :-/ ---
**Author:** ![Ostrya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/35a633/32.png) [@Ostrya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ostrya)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-children-b-i-not-i-b-get-headaches/574705/27 "2011-03-18T11:11:28Z")
When I was a kid, gave both my parents headaches. (have been told) ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-children-b-i-not-i-b-get-headaches/574705/28 "2011-03-18T16:22:53Z")
I used to get tension headaches when I was young because I was growing up in a dysfunctional, constant-crisis sort of home environment. I also got nausea sometimes when things were really bad. I had undiagnosed allergies and got a lot of sinus headaches from allergic reactions. My dad used to scold me because “I always had a cold.” Like it was my fault I had a cold. One day when I was in my early 20s, I asked him, “Did it ever occur to you guys to have me checked for allergies?” Dad said, “No, why? Do you have allergies?” Yeah. At one point, I was having headaches just about every day (when I was being sexually abused as a teen). My stepmom’s brilliant response to this was not to have me examined by a medical professional, but to hide the Tylenol because she thought I was becoming addicted and she thought she needed to nip that right in the bud. I have no words for the rage I felt when I asked her where the Tylenol was and she informed me that I would have to suck it up and suffer through my headaches. I think she thought they were all in my head. Pun not really intended. 😉 I ended up stopping at the drugstore on my way to school one morning and used my babysitting money to purchase my own personal stash of Tylenol, which I kept in my purse and in my locker at school. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-children-b-i-not-i-b-get-headaches/574705.md?page=1)