Vemma diary: July 2008

Controversial surgery may cure migraine

Since my last post I have been scanning the web to find out more about the surgical technique that could offer a cure or significant relief for some migraine sufferers - the removal of the corrugator muscle in the forehead (the vertical frown muscles).

The BBC News tells the success story of a 53 year old lady who had been suffering from debilitating migraines for 15 years. She has not had a migraine since the muscle was removed last December and her quality of life has improved beyond her imagination.
Read the full story here: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7487995.stm

To screen migraine sufferers for surgery, patients are given Botox injections to temporarily paralyze the corrugator muscle. If patients report improvement after Botox injections, surgery to remove the muscle is recommended. It is, however, a controversial technique and many experts remain skeptical.

The executive director of the National Migraine Association in Alexandria, Virgina, USA argues that neither Botox nor surgery can be a "cure" for migraine, but only a treatment of its symptoms. "The most important thing," he says, "is that migraine is an incurable disease."
Read more here: www.migraines.org/about_media/wbmd0900.htm

Researchers at the Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, undertook a study to determine whether there is an association between the removal of the corrugator muscle and the elimination or significant improvement of migraine headaches, and their findings indicate a strong association.
Read about their findings here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10946944