An Adolescent Case of Recurrent Episodes of Ophthalmoplegic Migraine.

Hwang,  Seonyoung; Yum,  Mi Sun; Kim,  Eun Hee; Ko,  Tae Sung

Case Report

Journal of the Korean Child Neurology Society 2013;21(3):184-189.
Published online September 30, 2013.

An Adolescent Case of Recurrent Episodes of Ophthalmoplegic Migraine.

Seonyoung Hwang, Mi Sun Yum, Eun Hee Kim, Tae Sung Ko

Department of Pediatrics, Asan Medical Center Children's Hospital University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. tsko@amc.seoul.kr

Abstract

Ophthalmoplegic migraine (OM) is a poorly understood neurological syndrome characterized by recurrent headaches with paresis of the ocular cranial nerves. The third cranial nerve is most commonly affected; the fourth and sixth nerve less so. The etiology, pathophysiology, and definitive treatment of OM remain unclear. We here report a 12-year-old girl who presented with recurrent OM attacks. This adolescent patient demonstrated contrast-enhanced oculomotor nerves on magnetic resonance imaging during OM episodes and marked responses to steroid treatment. The findings in our present study emphasize the difficulty of OM diagnosis, even with new International Headache Society criteria, because patients rarely fulfill all of the relevant characteristics at the same time.

Key Words: Ophthalmoplegic, Migraine, Children, Headache