CHILDREN are increasingly suffering from chronic headaches caused by overuse of paracetamol, a leading Scottish children's doctor has warned.

Pupils as young as seven are being treated at Scotland's biggest children's hospital once a fortnight for dependence on painkillers, according to consultant paediatrician Dr Ishaq Abu-Arafeh.

Drinking too many caffeinated soft drinks also gives some children persistent headaches, he said.

Dr Abu-Arafeh, who runs a headache clinic at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Yorkhill, Glasgow, is publishing a book called Childhood Headache this month, to help healthcare professionals diagnose causes of head pain in the young. It is an new version of a book released more than 10 years ago, updated because of significant advances in understanding the the nature of the problem.

Dr Abu-Arafeh said: "We are seeing quite a lot of conditions that in the past used to be exclusive to adults, like medication over-use headaches. We see quite a lot of headaches in children because they are getting too many paracetamol. It makes it very difficult to manage them."

He explained that in people of all ages, prolonged use of paracetamol and ibuprofen can dull pain for a short time but makes the head more sensitive and more likely to feel sore.

He said: "Parents sometimes feel helpless if they have a child complaining of pain in their head and their natural reaction is to offer them paracetamol or ibuprofen and they see that it has worked for a few hours, and unwittingly they try to encourage the child to get on top of their headaches by taking more and more.

"Once you have done that for a few weeks, you will … become over-sensitive and you will have a medication over-use headache."

This means the child will suffer headaches most days and have to undergo a tough withdrawal. Then the original cause of their original intermittent sore head can be treated.

Dr Abu-Arafeh's specialist clinic, which opened 17 years ago, has doubled in size and receives 200-300 referrals a year. He said patients face a wait of between two and three months to be seen.

One in three of the children he sees suffers chronic headaches - where the pain is almost a daily occurrence - and an estimated third of these have problems related to caffeinated drinks. Cases of medication over-use occur once a fortnight, Dr Abu-Arafeh said. Migraines and tension headaches are also common problems.

Most sufferers are adolescents and severe headache problems are almost twice as common in teenage girls compared to boys.

Dr Abu-Arafeh, who is also a consultant paediatrician for NHS Forth Valley,said it was impossible to know why headaches in children had become more common in the last 10 years.

But he added: "Children who used to play around in the garden or out in the fresh air changed their lifestyle to sit in front of the television or on the Xbox or PlayStations. We know that sedentary life is more associated with headaches than active lifestyles." Diet may also be a factor, he said.

Elizabeth May of Action for Sick Children Scotland said: "Headaches in childhood are very common and can be just as debilitating for children as for adults so we welcome books such as these which highlight the importance of taking children's healthcare issues as seriously as adult healthcare issues.

"We also welcome the fact that this book will raise awareness amongst clinicians about headaches in children which will hopefully lead to better outcomes for children."