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Migraines are in a class by themselves and are probably the most complicated of all headaches. All sorts of factors seem to accumulate to cause a migraine and an approaching period will only be one of them. Some migraines start when you wake up and get progressively worse through the day. Many make you feel sick. And they all interfere with your vision in one way or another. Bright lights are unbearable. Or you see flashes of light, or stars, or jagged shapes. Or even more alarming, you suddenly find that you’ve lost a patch of vision altogether, or that what you’re looking at has a jagged line breaking across it as though you were watching an image in a broken mirror.

Complete relaxation in a darkened room is often a great help to migraine sufferers. So is gentle fingertip massage. But you need to tackle all the causes of your particular pain if you’re to be cured. And that means checking your diet and your lifestyle. Some migraines seem to be triggered by an allergy to a particular food; cheese, chocolate and alcohol are often the villains, but they’re not the only ones. Other migraines seem to be linked to particular stresses that you’ve been forcing yourself to face. They often start immediately the stress is over, after the exams, for example, or when you stop work, or when you get out of the car after that difficult drive.

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Signs and symptoms

A child with threadworms has few symptoms. The child may complain at night of itching or burning around the anal or genital area. Threadworms can also be a cause of a sudden onset of bedwetting. If the infestation is heavy the child may have abdominal cramps. Threadworms can cause appendicitis (although this is rare), and they can work their way into a girl’s vagina and urethra (the passageway from the bladder to the outside) causing inflammation of the vagina or bladder.

Usually the diagnosis of threadworms is easily made by examining the skin around the anus at night while the child sleeps, or just after waking. Earthworms head back into the anus if disturbed by light, so the search must be done quickly. A threadworm can be mistaken for fluff on the skin; if the fluff moves, it’s a threadworm. Occasionally threadworms may be found in a bowel movement, but this is not a reliable way of making a diagnosis.

Home care

Vermifuges (worm medicines) must be obtained by prescription. When one member of a family has threadworms, all members (except infants and pregnant women) should be treated at the same time.

Precautions

• Suspect that threadworms may be the cause of recurrent inflammation of the vagina or bladder. • If one member of a family has threadworms, launder that person’s underclothes, bed linens, and towels to destroy the worm’s eggs. Also, cut and scrub his or her fingernails to remove any eggs. • Do not mistake fluff or thread for threadworms; look for movement.

• Do not blame household cats and dogs for a child’s having threadworms. These worms live only in humans.

Medical treatment

Your doctor investigates for threadworms using clear tape that will pick up any eggs that are on the skin. The tape is then examined under the microscope. If the test is positive, the doctor will prescribe worm medication for the entire family.

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