Migraines, while misunderstood, are about as common as diabetes and glaucoma! Botox and migraines explained

It’s estimated that about 1-2% of people worldwide suffer from chronic migraine. That means it\'s about as common as glaucoma and nearly as common as diabetes!

Our patients who suffer from migraine headaches will know that migraine headaches have specific characteristics and symptoms different from normal headaches. The pain of migraine headaches can be severe, and is often accompanied by excessive sensitivity to light, loud sounds, smells/odours, and nausea and/or vomiting.

It was thought that initial symptoms such as flashing lights and nausea occur when blood flow is reduced to certain parts of the brain due to constriction of the arteries. When these same arteries dilate later, the headache starts.

Headaches can occur without additional early symptoms, and less commonly the early symptoms can occur without the headache.

The pain is classically on one side of the head, but can affect the whole of the head and parts of the neck.

People who are diagnosed with chronic migraine have usually been getting headaches on 15 or more days in every month for at least 3 months.

Experiencing headaches and migraines this frequently has a huge impact on our patients\' lives and what they are able to do.

Despite research into this area, it is still not exactly clear what triggers a migraine. Several things may work together to start the chain of events leading to a migraine.

The latest scientific research suggests that headaches and migraines are caused by confusing signals that are sent and received by the brain. Nerves that detect pain seem to become over-sensitive to harmless activities (such as brushing your hair), and tell the brain that the head is in overwhelming pain when it isn’t.

Botox can be helpful for chronic migraine. When Botox was used to eliminate these lines for cosmetic reasons, a number of patients reported that their migraines had also improved. This lead to further studies where Botox was used specifically for migraine, with Botox being approved for chronic migraine in 2010.

The Botox treatment is used as a preventative treatment in chronic migraine. This means that rather than stop headaches once they have started, it aims to reduce the number of days on which headaches occur and improve the quality of life of patients suffering from chronic migraine. It is thought that the Botox injections block pain signals which then indirectly block the development of migraine.

As with any treatment, Botox doesn\'t work in everybody. Its thought that about 5% of patients with chronic migraine due not respond to Botox injections at all.

If you have any questions about migraines or the Botox treatment for migraines, feel free to get in touch by leaving a comment here or finding me on social media:

http://www.facebook.com/migrainesolutions

http://www.twitter.com/migrainewizard

Image courtesy of m_bartosch

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