Last year, I posted a news story about researchers studying the use of botox -- normally used to "cure" wrinkles -- as a method to treat migraines. I truly sympathize with people who suffer from the horrible pain associated with migraines. Sadly, desparate measures often provoke extreme risks, like injecting Botox and even incredibly insane things like having their facial muscles severed.
I thought it was sheer lunacy then. Can you imagine anything topping that? A recently completed U.S. study measured the merits of COMBINING BOTH botox and surgery to treat migraines?
No joke folks... Besides, April Fool's Day is still 13 weeks away!
Surprisingly, researchers injected about 100 patients with botox to find out which muscles triggered migraines, then used surgery to remove them. Even more astonishingly, surgery after the botox treatments reduced the intensity and frequency of migraines in 92 percent of patients and eliminated them altogether for a third of people involved.
The benefit as measured by the study wasn't recovery time or the lessening of pain. Merely, the potential to benefit employers and employees in terms of lost work time and productivity.
Again, it seems really insane to use a sanitized derivative of botulinum toxin Type A -- a bacterium found in contaminated food -- to treat patients for migraines much less surgery.
BBC News December 30, 2004