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Botox Treatment For Migraine Relief
Migraine pain is a neurology problem and very rarely it can be due to genetic problem. Typical symptoms of this is acute pain, mostly one side of the head hurts and the pain can be recurring, giddiness , nausea , sensitive to sounds, smells and lights.
Similar to how other medicines were discovered, using botox to treat migraine was also unintentionally discovered. Initially plastic surgeons used botox to reducing wrinkles but few patients who were suffering from migraine pain gave a feedback that their migraine pain has reduced after taking the botox injections on the forehead and eyebrow muscle.
Toxin Botulinum that is in a purified form is called as Nerotoxin and Botox is a protein purified and from a class of one of its compound. Acetylcholine is a chemical that tires out the muscle and Botox blocks the flow of this chemical into the muscle thus relaxing the tensed muscles. This is directly injected in the muscle and not in the blood vessel.
This initial study may have been less than optimal for several reasons. The injection sites were base on plastic surgery consideration (wrinkle areas) rather than typical locations of migraine pain.
Initially the results may have been less due to various reasons. Person suffering from migraine experience pain in the neck and also in other parts of the face, these areas were not be injected with botox but the points that were identified such as wrinkle areas were injected with botox as suggested by the plastic surgeon and this could be one of the initial reason for not getting desired relief with botox treatment. Now the injections are administered at the points of pain , except in few cases, most of the patients get immediate relief.
In few cases stress on muscle can be a factor to trigger off migraine pain, botox decrease this muscle stress and it also removes the substance which irritates the nerves thus reducing the pain. Treating migraine with botox has no side effects, the dosage is less and also inexpensive when compared to other kinds of medications used to treat migraine. It has to be administered at regular intervals with a gap of 3 months and not before this duration as the affect of this treatment usually lasts for 3 months and few patients get relief from the pain for 5 to 6 months.
Botox method of treatment is safe as the medicine is injected into the muscle and not into the blood vessel and it has no side effects such as giddiness, tiredness, psychological changes and increase in weight. It causes very mild pain at the spot where it is injected and at times the eyelids may droop but even this can be avoided if a appropriate procedure is used to inject the medicine.
Conclusion
At present, FDA has not approved this as a treatment for migraine pain and one must opt for this treatment only after having a thorough discussion with the doctor and also keeping in view the side effects.
It has been proved that except for 20 percent of the patients, rest of the patients have immediate relief with less pain and fewer up to 6 months.