My 11 year old son has been diagnosed by a neurologist with a rebound headache. We have been using ibuprofin off and on for several months for chronic sinus infections. However, he did not suffer from primary headaches with the chronic sinisitis, nor at any other time in his life. With these sinus infections he felt some mild facial pain, but mostly had body aches so the doctor told us to use ibuprofin or tylenol for the aches and pains. My question is can someone without a history of any kind of primary headache develop a rebound headache when using meds like ibuprofin, tylenol etc..? My son's father does have a history of migraines as does other members of our family. In the absence of primary headaches and with the family history of headaches, could an 11 year old get a rebound headache? He has had this headache for 4 weeks now and we have rulled out anything serious. He has had an MRI with anfw/out contract, 2 CT scans and numerous blood tests (including Lyme's). We nearly had a spinal tap done, but a neurologist determined it was not necessary. These rebound headaches are so vague to me, but could very well be the case. We have stopped all medication. Any help, advice or response is most welcomed!Anne
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Q: 11 year old boy with possible REBOUND HEADACHE for 4 weeks and no history of primary headache
Hi annieboleyn,
Yes, it is possible for someone to have rebound, now called medication overuse headache, MOH, without a "history" of headache. Here's the thing, using certain over the counter (OTC) and/or prescription medications more than two to three days a week may put us at risk for MOH. The only way to stop MOH is to cease the offending medication. We have more information on this type of headache in this article: Medication Overuse Headache - When the Remedy Backfires.
If you're in an MOH situation, nothing you take is going work, neither prescription nor "natural" medications nor over-the-counter. If that's the case, you need to work with your doctor to stop the medications causing the problem.
Another problem with MOH is it may put us at risk for another type of Migraine, Transformed Migraine. This information can be found in this article: Transformed Migraine - Risk Increased by Some Medications.
A word about sinus "headache" if I may - many people have been told by doctors that they have sinus infections when in fact they really have Migraines. This may be true with your son seeing as your husband also has Migraines. When one parent has Migraine disease, our children have a 50% chance of passing getting Migraines. Continue reading our article about sinus for more information: Sinuses Giving You a Headache? It's Probably Migraine.
I hope this helps.
Nancy
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