As a global leader in paediatric headache and migraine care, Dr. Marissa Lagman-Bartolome is furthering preventive care and earlier diagnosis for our children.
Caring for the future of children’s health means acknowledging and investing in conditions that are overlooked, understudied, or in Dr. Marissa Lagman- Bartolome’s case, seen as “not a big deal.”
A paediatric neurologist and headache specialist, Dr. Lagman-Bartolome sees her young patients facing the pervasive myth that headaches are normal. In fact, headaches are abnormal and a primary symptom of migraine – the most debilitating health condition for children worldwide.
“Migraine is the most disabling brain disease in children as young as five through to teenagers. They often experience daily migraine attacks and are bedridden due to dizziness, nausea, vomiting, fogginess, fatigue or visual changes,” explained Dr. Lagman-Bartolome, one of only four formally trained paediatric headache neurologists in the country.
The seriousness of migraine symptoms and the need for frequent doctor’s visits cause children to miss school, extracurriculars or time with friends, making migraine isolating for young patients.
To protect the lives of children facing headaches, Dr. Lagman-Bartolome is developing the first Comprehensive Paediatric Headache Centre in Ontario at Children’s Hospital. Her goal is to ensure children’s pain is recognized and responded to with the best care.
Dr. Lagman-Bartolome and Children’s Hospital are becoming a hub of headache care, treating the most medically complex patients, while their partners in regional sites gain the education they need to treat less severe cases right in their communities.
The faster children have their headaches recognized, diagnosed and managed, the more likely they are to be headache-free after one year, possibly never progressing to debilitating and chronic migraine.
“The simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming thing I hear almost every day is parents thanking me,” said Dr. Lagman-Bartolome. “They see the benefits of the best headache care for their child while also wishing they had help from someone like me decades ago, so they didn’t have to suffer with disabling migraine attacks their whole lives.”
Investing in headache and migraine care at Children’s Hospital means protecting generations of children from a debilitating brain disease and healing generations past as they watch the lives of their children improve.
Dr. Lagman-Bartolome is leading comprehensive headache and migraine care by:
- Providing regional hospital partners with on-site training to perform preventative headache treatments like nerve blocks.
- Providing virtual consultations for primary care providers to help them feel confident in their diagnoses and treatment plans for patients with headaches.
- Assisting with groundbreaking paediatric migraine trials that are working to improve access to migraine-specific medications and targeted therapies.
- Leading a nine-person working group to develop an evidence-based, expert consensus statement that guides clinicians on the best treatment for young patients in the Emergency Room with severe migraine attacks.
- Hosting webinar series on paediatric headaches with patient support groups like Migraine Canada, and Canadian Headache Society, to educate health care professionals on best practices for headache and migraine treatment.
- Co-leading the Paediatric Canadian Headache Network that promotes research, quality improvement projects and provides educational materials to increase awareness of headache disorders.
Children’s Health Foundation is honoured to support the life-changing work of Dr. Marissa Lagman-Bartolome and her fellow experts in Paediatric Neurology at Children’s Hospital.
Learn more at the Paediatric Headache and Migraine Awareness Day celebration on June 19, 2025 at Children’s Hospital. Click here for details.
