Jake’s Story
Jake started complaining that he had a headache when he was five; he was only in kindergarten. As parents, we started looking for solutions – we wanted to see our son enjoying school. We changed Jake from the morning class to the afternoon class because the afternoon class was a calmer group, we kept him home some days, we arranged with his teacher to allow him to work in a quiet room and we started seeing a very long line of doctors and specialists. Jake’s headaches continued. He was able to get through kindergarten but he continued to suffer into the summer and into the next school year. By second grade Jake could do nothing without a headache. He had a headache during school, he had a headache during baseball practice, he had a headache when he was outside playing with his brothers, he had a headache when he woke up in the morning and when he went to bed at night. By the time Jake reached third grade we even tried home schooling but the headaches continued.
From the time Jake was 5 until his junior year in high school – Jakes’s head hurt. Some days on a scale of 1 to 10 the pain was only a 2 or 3 but other days it was a full blown migraine; his temples were pounding, he was nauseated, he was sensitive to light and noise, and it was a struggle for him to get out of bed. As parents we felt helpless when we would hear Jake crawl to the bathroom because he was too nauseated and in too much pain to walk. Jake was dealing with more pain than any child should have to deal with; Continue reading