The Centre, P.C. - Plastic Surgery Blog

Cosmetic Procedures May Help Chronic Headache Sufferers - Tuesday, July 15, 2008

People with migraines or migraine-like chronic headaches find the condition debilitating. For people with true migraines, some mitigation of the condition can be seen with behavioral therapy, but the reality is that sufferers lose time at work and at home as a result of their recurring headaches, and for some, avoiding migraine-related foods does not provide relief. These people may not be sufferers of the serotonergic form of the headache, and for these sufferers doctors in Britain are exploring the use of a formerly cosmetic procedure to reduce or stop their migraine-like headaches.

For some people, the cause of headaches may be pressure on a facial nerve by the corrugator muscle. The corrugators muscle, so named because its function is to corrugate or wrinkle the brow, is sometimes removed during a brow lift surgery, and cosmetic surgeons noticed that following brow lift surgery, some headache sufferers saw a lower incidence of headaches. This led them to try the procedure as a form of headache remedy.

However, the corrugator muscle is only one possible cause of recurrent headaches, so before surgery is performed, Botox™ is used to paralyze the muscle temporarily to see if it might be responsible for the headaches. If it seems responsible, it is removed. In small-scale studies, the procedure seems effective.

Some practitioners of Botox™ therapy for headaches are dubious of the notion that the corrugator alone is responsible for the headaches, since they typically inject a larger area than just the corrugator muscle. However, if the procedure continues to be successful, it may be another example of the crossover between cosmetic surgery and general medicine.

To learn more about the benefits of brow lifts, Botox™, and other cosmetic procedures, contact The Centre, P.C. today for a consultation.