Botox is primarily used to treat chronic migraine, but can occasionally be used to treat other headache disorders. It is also used to treat certain forms of neck pain with muscle over activity called dystonia, certain forms of facial spasms, and muscle spasticity caused by injury to the brain and spinal cord from strokes or other injuries.
Chronic migraine is a more severe form of migraine where the headaches occur on more days than they don’t, and for these cases Botox is
particularly helpful. The procedure consists of a series of injections distributed around the scalp, neck and shoulders approximately 4 times per year and can provide remarkable results.
The whole procedure shouldn’t take more than about 5 minutes. Because Botox doesn’t work immediately, we have other injections that
can provide more immediate results.
Peripheral Nerve Blocks are a series of injections using local anesthetics such as Lidocaine and Marcaine which essentially make the
scalp numb, but within seconds to minutes tend to stop a severe headache. What is truly remarkable about these injections, is that
not just the headache goes away, but the light and noise sensitivity, the nausea and the general sense of illness that accompanies the severe migraine. These injections can also be useful for cluster headaches and sometimes for more rare forms of headache such as
paroxysmal hemicranias.
Sphenopalatine Ganglion Blocks is a brief squirt of local anesthetic in each nostril. This can sometimes stop migraine headaches and because there are no needles involved, tends to be less painful then some of the other procedures. The goal is to anesthetize a bundle of nerves found on either side of the nasal cavity, and the practitioner will use a device that sprays a local anesthetic to the side of the
nasal cavity in both nostrils.
Your doctor will discuss these options with you as well as others such as the use of preventive medication, IV magnesium, and what to do when your headaches break through the preventive therapy.
