Migraine Headache and Acid Peptic Diseases in Children

Background: Although there are some studies on correlation between migraine headache and GI symptoms, they did not significantly support the correlation between migraine headache and acid peptic diseases. This case control study aimed to find such a correlation. Methods: There were 70 patients (5-15 years old) who had endoscopic documented acid peptic diseases. The frequency of migraine headache in this group and also in a group consisting of a sample of normal population (300 individuals) without any GI problem in the past year was determined by a questionnaire. Results: The frequency of migraine headache was determined in each kind of acid peptic disease in the patients, being 92.9%, 68.6%, 24.3%, 4.3%, and 4.3% among patients with gastritis, esophagitis, doudenitis, gastric ulcer, and duodenal ulcer, respectively. The frequencies of migraine headache among the normal population and acid peptic disease group were 11.3% and 22.9%, respectively. The difference was found to be statistically significant. Conclusions: Our findings showed a significant correlation between migraine headache and acid peptic diseases, especially esophagitis and gastritis. This result accords with that in some of the previous studies.