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Summary Abdominal Migraine

I found a definition on the web: Migraine in children accompanied by
paroxysmal abdominal pain. This must be distinguished from similar symptoms
requiring surgical attention.

However, it still sounds like a condition in which doctors haven't found the
underlying cause. I believe something caused my niece to start having this
condition. It bothers me that doctors will treat a condition without
attempting to find the cause. If you don't get the cause, you will always
have to have some "treatment".  I hope my niece will have at least the blood
test for celiac to rule that out as a possibility.

I got many responses saying "I don't know", "never heard of it", "sounds
like the doctor was making it up".

There were also a few who had heard of this. One person had been diagnosed
with abdominal migraines after being diagnosed with celiac. A few had bee
diagnosed with abdominal migraines before celiac diagnosis and in those
cases the abdominal migraine symptoms do not appear unless gluten is
ingested.

One person said that this is neurological and a neurologist should be
consulted. Well, yes but a neurologist won't address underlying conditions
if they aren't coming from the nervous system. I have first hand experience
with this because my daughter was being treated for seizures before her
celiac diagnosis. Neither neurologist I dealt would consider a connection
between the siezures and the celiac even though the seizures completely
disappeared on a GF diet (from a high of hundreds a day).  According to them
it was a coincidence. My daughter is GF, seizure free and off anti
convulsant meds. She now sees Dr. Fasano who understands the relationship
between gastroenterology and neurology.

Lastly, some people pointed out that you can have both and that celiac
disease will aggravate the migraines, so if you aren't treating the celiac,
the migraine condition will be worse than it has to be.

* Visit the Celiac Web Page at www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/index.html *