Contagious Headache?

Updated on September 21, 2010
D.G. asks from Maple Shade, NJ
9 answers

I am the mom of 3. My youngest is 27 months and she we very irritable for a few days, ended up vomitting in her crib one night, and woke up complaining of her ears. I took her to the doctor and they said it looked like strep and put her on an antibiotic. A few days later my son, 4, woke up with a terrible headache, but got releif from Mortrin. The headache lasted the entire day and he woke up headache free the next day. 3 days later my 5yr old started complaining of a headache and stomach pain, but was also getting relief from Motrin. Something tells me that my little one started this mess, and the poor thing must have been suffering from headaches and was able to articulate it to me. Has anyone else experienced this seemingly contagious headache phenomena??

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So What Happened?

I called the doctor today for the result of the strep culture and it was negative!

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B.

answers from Augusta on

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say allergies and sinus problems. headache caused by stopped up sinuses and the tummy ache caused by some of it draining into his stomach. Sore throat can also be caused by this.
it's pretty common for children in the same family to suffer from the same type of allergies.

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S.H.

answers from Hartford on

My family went through a sickness that had headachey symptoms. Since my infant was unable to vocalize that his head hurt, I just gave him some Tylenol when I had a headache. It lasted the same period of time as a regular bug.

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C.T.

answers from Provo on

my 12 year old has had the headache for a few days the dr gave it a name (wish I could remember it) said it is a virus. Low to high fever, body aches, and a bad headache. The headache can cause dizziness and vomiting. We were told to use IB, gateraide (or off name brand), Propel water.

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D.W.

answers from Indianapolis on

Headaches aren't, in and of themselves, contagious. Chances are, they had a virus or bacterial infection that had headache as one of the more pronounced symptoms.

Unfortunately, headaches can accompany many different disorders, so it's really hard to make any diagnosis from that alone.

With the stomach pain in your 5 YO, my guess is a virus that needed to pass. Our 4 YO still doesn't do a good job or articulating when things hurt. He told us he had holes in his mouth recently. Ended-up being hand-foot-mouth disease, and the holes were the mouth sores.

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D.C.

answers from Pittsburgh on

Yep, it's a virus and it's going through my family right now - yuck! We've had various other symptoms (fever for the baby and husband, headache and body aches for me, etc). But I'm sure it's all the same virus and we all react to it just a little differently from each other.

P.W.

answers from Dallas on

The headache may be the symptom of a virus, thus the contagious nature. Be alert. Headache and/or tummy ache can be symptoms of a strept throat too, which are also contagious. My friends son didn't always get a fever. If there is any fever I would have the other kids checked out.

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A.L.

answers from Allentown on

My family experienced these symptoms (headache, abdominal pain, sore throat) a few weeks ago. But they also had a high fever (103-104.5). My daughter was also tested for strep and the culutre came back negative. Turned out to be Coxsackie Virus- a type of Enterovirus. The fever and headache lasted about 24 hrs but the sore throat lingered for about a week. I thought we were on the mend and now my middle son (24 mos) has roseola, I guess it's always something :) Take care, I hope you all are feeling better soon.

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M.R.

answers from San Francisco on

It seems it's more than a contagious headache. The headache is a symptom of a contagious disease, i.e. strep.

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J.R.

answers from Philadelphia on

Headaches themselves are not contagious. However, oftentimes viruses (like stomach viruses, the flu, colds, etc.) will include headache as one of the symptoms. Given the tummy troubles associated with these headaches I would guess that there is some GI virus going around your house (there's a lot going around right now- we've all been getting sick in my house for the past couple weeks). Once the virus passes the headaches should as well. Hope everyone is feeling better soon!

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