Hi Ruth!
My migraines improved a lot since I began antihistamines. But there are days....
I've found that when I hit in quickly with medicine that it will more often than not resolve itself quickly. Before my masto came out of hiding and I got onto daily antihistamines I'd get these migraines for 2, 3, 4, and even 5 days and I found that once those nerves got themselves involved and irritated and even inflammed then it was a matter of putting ice packs and sleeping and constant medicating and just having to bear it out cause nothing would work. After I got on daily antihistamines the majority of my headaches, when I'd get them, would resolve quickly. But one of the things I noticed is that some of my headaches were tension headaches and others were I think masto related. Those that were masto related often had this extrasensitive vision to accompany it. I'd go out into the sunlight and "feel" that the movement of my eyes hurt and this was one of my signals that a headache was on its way. I also noticed that when I'm doing a lot of reacting that I get this same issue, so this helped me to associate this feeling with the masto headache, whereas the tension headache was definitely muscular. Nevertheless, the use of the antihistamines helped me to be more responsive to the pain meds.
This showed me that regardless of the source of the headache, the mast cells were involved in it. Since then I've learned that pain can trigger mast cells to degranulate and that degranulation of mast cells and the histamine release end up involved in the pain receptors of the neurological system. So, you have a situation that's like a two edged knife and both sides are cutting at the same time. So, regardless of what came first that chicken or the egg, you still have mast cell triggering involved.
So, since you're working with a child, you need to talk with your doctors about this and work up an effective means of dealing with your son's headaches. He's also got to help you. Since he's already on antihistamine treatment, you may not have to up his meds, but then, would it hurt to add in an extra one specifically for this purpose? It' worth talking with your doctors about this. Then you need to use an effective pain medication in combination right at the very first sign of the pain. Like I said, my vision is a telltale sign for me and also the feeling of my forehead muscles hurting. Then you should instruct your son that at the very first feeling of something not right the he takes this combination of the two meds. And, if the pain does not improve, then about half hour later, another dose of the pain med and then if that doesn't help half hour later one more.
However, Ruth, this has got to be doctor involved for these are instructions from doctors of how to deal with migraines in that you hit in hard and fast at the first sign, but they've got to accompany this not only because you are using a lot of over the counter pain meds, but also due to the fact that your son is a child and reacts differently and has the need of lower doses.
Another reason you need doctor involvement is due to the types of pain medication you'd have to use. I would never use tylenol for this kind of thing! Tylenol is KNOWN for being toxic to the kidneys and it's also not so very effective as a pain medication. I've never liked using it on my kids for fevers either for it's not effective as a fever reducer either. Personally I don't like Tylenol but I know that this is one pain med that doesn't trigger us. However, for this situation I'd not use it unless there really was no other medication I could use. Instead I would be using either aspirin or an NSAID.
Okay, aspirin and NSAIDs are on the NO NO list. Lisa, how can you say to use it then? Well, according to Dr. Luis Escribano in a talk he gave at the 2009 TMS conference and according to research done on us, only about 10% of us are really sensitive to the use of these meds. I know that I don't react. I've used aspirin and NSAIDs without a problem. However, I think that the real reason we are told not to use them is not because we ARE reactive, but because there is the POTENTIAL TO BE reactive. And that's where the danger lies for us. And Ruth, this is why you MUST have your doctors involved in this for they need to help you find an EFFECTIVE means of helping your son when he gets one of these. I don't think that Tylenol is as safe as they want us to believe. It's known to kill off too many kidneys and for a child to be using that as a means to combate a migraine, it's just not effective.
Ruth, I don't know if you can get Dipirona there in Singapore, but I would check this out with your doctors. It's really a very effective pain reliever and it doesn't seem to be as much of a trouble maker as the other NSAIDs can be. It's been banned in the US but it's used all over the world. We use it here in Brazil and I was IMPRESSED at how effective it was for me with my surgical pain with the open heart surgery I went through!! I was relatively pain free following surgery, there in the ICU and while in the hospital!!! I couldn't use any narcotics and my doctors used this inconjunction with tylenol and again, tylenol is recognized by doctors not to be that effective of a pain reliever. It just doesn't call all the allergic reacting which is why they use it. (I think it's also a lot of advertising too). But this is a medication that I've learned to have a lot more faith in once I came to Brazil and saw how widely it's used here.
So, see what your doctors can do to help your son. I hope you can find some real answers for him !!!
Hugs!
Lisa