In my experience, accommodations for my students means things like taking tests in the DSS office and getting a quiet room or extra time. It has never meant “excusing” students from anything. Although in a course I was taking, the blind student was excused from having to write an essay describing the scene in a youtube video. He had to write an essay describing the music in a different video. I doubt any of the rest of the students managed to cough up with the word “unfair”.
Seriously, a kid that ends up in the hospital with a broken arm would certainly be able to get a doctor’s note to excuse him or her from an exam or handing in a paper for a few days. Of course there are people that take advantage of these kinds of things, but migraines are not a little headache that goes away quickly. They can be truly debilitating. Many kids with migraines have to take a reduced schedule of classes.
My daughter had a Latin teacher that took no excuses, although may have had to accept one registered with the disabilities office. So broken arm? No. Registered disability and missed class? Maybe.
My dd’s Dr’s request for accommodations is absence from class if ill. Most of the time her issues are controlled by meds, but on occasion she wakes up so sick she can’t get up and has to go to the dr for additional meds before she can function. It has only happened twice in 2 yrs, but when it happens, it happens.
The disabilities office has assured her that having the accommodations will allow her to miss class, see her dr, and make up the work.
Well, for now, we were able to get a document from her neurologist to start the 504 paperwork.
I don’t know any professor who wouldn’t work with a student who ends up in the hospital.
If this happened to a student, I’d hope they’d raise hell because that’s unacceptable.
I truly don’t believe this is any kind of widespread problem. It definitely hasn’t been in my experience or with anyone I know.
@AbsDad wonderful! Continued best wishes.
I wish you had been my parent @AbsDad. I didn’t get diagnosed until I was 40ish because my mom had always brushed off my headaches, blaming tiredness, allergies, stress, etc. When I finally did a headache diary I had about 23 days per month with a headache, several of which would have me barely functioning. Daily medications and Maxalt have changed my life. It took a lot of trial and error to get my medications right.
In the last year I started playing some cell phone games. The game 2048 has really been eyeopening. After a “normal” migraine it takes about 2 days for my score to reach what it was before. After a soul crushing one I needed 2.5 weeks to reach my previous score. I was really surprised because I thought I was doing well physically but scores don’t lie.
The brain fog after a migraine I call my migraine hangover.
The point to the anecdote is to suggest you find a way to track how much time her brain needs to recover after an episode. It may help inform her planning - how soon after a bad migraine can she be expected to take a make up test. What is her recovery time?
@“Snowball City” Her recovery from a migraine can run from 15 minutes to 6 days ( longest so far, needed to be hiospitalized to break it ).
Anyway we are letting her get a “daith piercing”… a specific ear piercing which helps about 50% of the people who try it… some get immediate relief, and no more migraines…
My kid had accommodations, a supportive dean and was in a small and understanding department, but still had two medical leaves, one for migraines and one for seizures. So yes, the issue is not entirely accommodations, but they did enable her to finish and graduate. She left when she felt she could not meet the standards of the school- and of her own.
The issue of “hangover” is a crucial one: the brain takes awhile to recover from a migraine. We had the neurologist explain this and it played a large role in the college actually suggesting a reduced course load. If you have pain in your leg, you can push through it and get work done. But migraines aren’t just pain in the head: they are neurological events that compromise function for some time after the migraine ends, so it is difficult to push through anything that involves cognitive skills. Making up work becomes very difficult, and getting work done in advance in case a migraine occurs before a due date, can only do so much. You can miss 4 days of cognition for each migraine, or more.
Anticonvulsants can do wonders for prevention. Lamictal for instance (young women generally cannot take Depakote). Zofran or Compazine help with nausea. Some people cannot take rescue drugs. Reglan is a new approach for that and can help. MD’s will suggest B2, Diamox…there are many approaches.
Migraines can often involve the electrical zig zag visual phenomena, even without any headache. Migraines might also cause one sided paralysis, slurred speech or loss of balance. Oliver Sacks wrote a lengthy book on migraines that describes countless different and strange effects. They are certainly a disability.
One other thing, which I may be repeating: many MD’s do not know a lot about accommodations. It really helps for parents to research accommodations and write a letter listing them, for the MD to sign. MD’s appreciate this actually.
ps romanigypsyeyes, the lupus idea is good to mention: my kid had a lupus diagnosis and used high dose steroids for migraines but in the end we don’t think that she was having lupus headaches (vasculitis).; she does have some signs of POTS and dysautonomia in general. Lyme is a contributor for some as well. A good doc will consider other medical contributors I think.
Well, thanks to you folks, I was able to get a 504 certification for her,
Also, we let her get a “daith” ring in her ear. It supposedly has a 50 / 50 shot of stopping migraines. She hasn’t had one in the 4 days since she got it… and she was getting them every 2 - 3 days, so maybe this actually worked for her. Certainly a very minute sample, but at least a positive minute sample.
Thanks for the update! Oh, I hope the ring does the trick!
My son fractured his primary arm elbow and wrist and after being xrayed and wrapped at the hospital and receiving a referral to an orthopedic doctor (and could only get an appointment several weeks away), he had to go to his primary doctor for them to fill out the appropriate disability forms from the disability office (“doctors notes” don’t count for anything, everything has to be on the disability office forms). After all that, he had to make arrangements through the disability office to have a notetaker in class for a few weeks. There was no excusing from current exams (he did his best, writing as best possible) nor extra time given to turn in assignments.
I’ve been following this thread. Keep us posted on her progress!
Curious to hear the results of the piercing.
MLM I believe the disabilities office exists to prevent “financial and administrative burdens” on the college, and “substantive changes to the curriculum.”
I can understand that the school might have required him to take an exam but it seems that technology should have been offered, or a scribe, at the very least. Or a make up later on. I am kind of shocked. That is not the experience we have had, at any of several schools, including the most rigorous schools in the country.
@compmom - they had livescribe pens available, but that wouldn’t have helped him. The scribe records and links audio to what you write, so you still have to write. He used a note taker, someone in class who took notes for him so he didn’t have to write. He did have to take his exams at the same time as everyone else and complete any assignments.
I was thinking more of an oral exam, where he could record answers.
This seems unusual to me. But I guess if he was able to do the exams, he had to take them, so to speak. He certainly should have had extra time for work and in exams. We have never used the disabilities offices for situations like this, even though my kids are registered. Instead, a dean of one sort or the other tells the professors what accommodations they need to provide (once the dean has gotten medical documentation.) Do you think the school just didn’t make it clear how to work the system? The happened to us one freshman year but once in an upperclass house w/dean it was smooth sailing So sorry he went through that.
If she hasn’t tried them already, I highly recommend checking out trigger point injections. I haven’t had a single migraine since I started getting them a few times a year.
At my son’s college, the student must initiate contact with the disability office and provide appropriate medical documentation and apply for specific accommodations which must be approved. The student is responsible for speaking with his professors regarding accommodations approved.
My son only asked for a note taker and it was approved fairly quickly after he provided appropriate documentation. If he had requested exam accommodations, it would have taken everything to a different level, with a lot more paperwork and documentation which would go into his quality of life and such. By the time they would have approved (or denied) exam accommodations, the semester and exams would have been over and they would have been in the next quarter.
Our school’s disability office had the same requirements and letters to prof’s. But day to day academic accommodations were often handled by dean via doctor’s note. My kid postponed an exam with a brief visit to the dean, no paperwork at all, but she had chronic conditions already known by all.
Not sure a broken arm would even go through the disabilities office since it is temporary.
So he didn’t ask- that explains it. I am glad he was able to finish and hope there was no big impact on grades etc. due to the broken arm.
Interesting because I get TPI’s for back pain, and they only work for about 3 days, and then my pain comes right back, I stopped getting them as I don’t want all the steroids in me… and the ones that are just lidocaine don’t work at all for me.