Kids and migraines: What are your experiences?

My 11 year old daughter has been getting migraines from time to time over the past year (maybe five or six so far). Sometimes she gets the classic pounding headache with vomiting, other times she first gets strange visual or physical symptoms followed by the headache, and sometimes she is able to nip it in the bud when she feels strange by taking a long nap, which seems to prevent the headache.

I’ve never had migraines and find her symptoms very scary. For example, today I picked her up from school because she’d gone to the nurse saying she had a sudden headache in her forehead, followed by “messed up peripheral vision in one eye.” Her words. She also had trouble articulating, as if most of what she wanted to say was right on the tip of her tongue but wouldn’t come out right. She’s been asleep for two hours now, and I suspect she will feel fine when she wakes up. Other times she has suddenly felt exhausted, or like her limbs were too heavy. Once the headache kicks in, if she isn’t able to sleep before it starts, she has the sensitivity to light and noise.

We are going to the doctor this afternoon, but I’m wondering if other migraine sufferers can share their experiences with getting through them, recognizing when a migraine is coming on, treating them, and possibly having them as a child or preteen and outgrowing them. I looked up a lot of information about migraines, and all of her symptoms are recognized as things that can show up just prior to a migraine.