74% of girls and 52% of boys have headaches at age 17, according to a Finnish study of 6,262 twins. At age 11, 60% of girls and 59% of boys had headaches at least once a month. The prevalence of weekly headaches increase d in girls from 16% to 25% between ages 11 and 14. Headaches in kids is a major problem, but unfortunately it does not receive proper attention. Sometimes parents do not believe that their child has a headache or if they do, they are reluctant to take the child to a doctor because they don’t want to resort to prescription medications. Fortunately, many non-drug approaches are very effective in kids. Regular sleep schedule (very hard to enforce in teenagers), regular meals, frequent aerobic exercise, biofeedback or meditation, and supplements can be very effective. Several studies have shown that kids with headaches are often deficient in magnesium, riboflavin (vitamin B2), and Co-enzyme Q10 (CoQ10). If a child still has headaches, a medications may also be appropriate.
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A pharmacogenetic study by Italian researchers discovered that absence of a certain gene can predict therapeutic response in migraine patients who are treated with riboflavin (vitamin B2). Pharmacogenomics has been a very promising field of medical science that may enable doctors to select the most effective and safe medicine for each patient based on their genetic profile. This is a small but important step in utilizing this science to treat headache patients.
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