For two weeks in June, a 13-year-old Wayne girl was the face of pediatric migraines on a giant billboard above Times Square, writes Linda Stein for Main Line Media News.

“It was really cool,” said Lexi DiMarino, an 8th grader at St. Katharine of Siena School.

Her dad, Keith DiMarino, entered her into a contest though the American Migraine Foundation. Her picture was chosen for the Times Square billboard at 43rd Street and Broadway.

The billboard was displayed from June 1 to 16 for Migraine and Headache Awareness Month.

Lexi has suffered from sporadic migraines since she was 6 years old. Her CHOP doctor, Dr. Donna Stephenson, a pediatric neurologist, now has her on a regime that is helping.

Keith DiMarino was motivated by Lexi’s illness to run the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim Challenge last year, raising more than $25,000 for pediatric migraine research. Lexi was very proud, she said.

A migraine means “the inability to do anything. It hurts so much you can’t move,” she said. “The littlest things, lights and sound, make it worse.”

Migraines in children are not rare, Stephenson said. Some 7,500 patients were treated for headaches at CHOP last year alone.

Read more about Lexi here.

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