Complicated Case

[destineez_treasure]

My daughter who is almost 21 now, is currently experiencing abdominal migraines with numbness in both sides affecting her hands and feet. Unlike most cases she actually experienced migraine headaches before these abdominal migraines. When she was in the 8th grade she had her first migraine attack, which presented itself in what appeared to be a hemiplegic migraine. Now the headaches are replaced with the abdominal or MV(migraine variant), and both sides of her body are affected with numbness, which would be more similar to Basilar migraines. Since all her testing at the last neurologist came back fine , and note all tests ever done have come back normal, they say there is nothing more they can do. As far as they are concerned she is neurologically fine!! Crackpots!! You think they would at least tell us she should seek a professional who knows more about migraines, as they apparently haven't even ever heard of abdominal migraines!  I have done a lot of research and  hope to help her get under a physicians care that is knowledgeable in more difficult cases. My question is that I was wondering if it is possible to have hemiplegic migraines but suffer numbness on both sides simultaneously? Also do you know of any other cases or info on adults suffering the abdominal migraines with numbness ?

[Vanessa Lacuesta]

Hi,

Hemiplegic migraines are usually diagnosed based on the presence of a migraine headache at the same time focal neurologic deficits are present. By focal neurologic deficits, a unilateral (one sided ) weakness or paralysis is usually considered. Unlike basilar migraines wherein the auras do not include weakness but may include imbalance and speech disorders, hemiplegic migraines usually present with weakness. As for the numbness, there are experiences with patients that present with facial numbness at the onset of hemiplegic migraines. Numbness presenting in both sides of the body may not necessarily exclude the diagnosis of a hemiplegic migraine although underlying causes like vitamin deficiencies or a spinal cord disorder may also need to be ruled out.

At this point, I can not delineate cases of abdominal migraines that present with numbness. Abdominal migraines may be associated with vomiting. For cases, wherein vomiting is predominant, numbness may be attributed to an underlying loss of electrolytes or electrolyte imbalance.