Help for Your Migraines

If the pain and discomfort migraines bring is disrupting your life, you’re not alone. Around the world, over one billion people suffer from migraine headaches, including 39 million Americans. 

The pain migraines cause can be severe, and there’s no doubt they can wreak havoc on your daily routine. Fortunately, at Brooks Plastic Surgery in Hollywood, Florida, Dr. Christopher Brooks and our team offer help for your migraines. 

Learn more about the different ways we can help migraines and which treatment might be right for you. 

What treatments help migraines?

The pain migraines cause can be severe, and finding the right treatment can restore your quality of life. While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all treatment for migraines, the number of migraine treatments available means that there’s likely to be a treatment that helps you find relief. Here’s a look at several different types of migraine treatments available: 

Lifestyle changes

Learning different pain management strategies and practicing self-care can help you manage the pain and discomfort of migraine headaches. 

Some helpful migraine strategies to try include:

• Improving sleep hygiene
• Relaxation techniques
• Drinking caffeinated beverages in early migraine stages
• Improving your diet and looking for food triggers
• Exercising regularly
• Practicing healthy stress management
• Keeping a migraine diary to look for triggers

While these techniques are useful, patients with severe migraines often find that they aren’t enough to prevent their migraines or alleviate serious migraine pain.  

Medications for migraines

Many different medications exist to help alleviate or prevent migraine headaches. From nutritional and herbal supplements, like B vitamins, magnesium, and coenzyme Q10, to over-the-counter pain medications to caffeine, there are a variety of at-home products you can try. 

Most patients with severe headaches find that these medications alone aren’t enough to alleviate their pain, so they turn to prescription medications, including:

• Ergots, to alleviate serious pain
• Triptans, to increase serotonin production
• Ergotamines, to contract the blood vessels around the brain
• Antidepressants, to reduce blood pressure and blood flow
• Anticonvulsants, to prevent frequent migraines
• Botox®, to relax your neck and head muscles
• Aimovig®, to target the protein receptor linked to migraines

While these medications may help prevent or alleviate headaches, these drugs also cause many side effects, some of which may be more distressing than the migraine headache that triggered the medication’s use. For example, your provider may recommend anti-nausea medications to help with nausea caused by other migraine medications.

Interested in learning more about different migraine medications? Check out our informative post. 

Migraine headache surgery

Dr. Brooks may recommend migraine surgery if your symptoms don’t respond to other types of migraine treatment. Migraine surgery works to reduce how often you get migraines, how long they last, and the intensity of your migraine pain. 

Researchers believe that when a sensory nerve or blood vessel in your head is compressed, it can trigger migraine headaches. These trigger points differ from person to person, however, the most common include:

• Frontal (forehead, above eyes)
• Temporal (temples)
• Rhinogenic (nose, behind eyes)
• Occipital (back of head, across skull)

There are other less common trigger point sites, but it’s possible that one of these is the cause of your headaches. Dr. Brooks conducts a careful examination to accurately diagnose your unique trigger points. Sometimes called nerve decompression surgery, migraine surgery strategically reduces pressures on the nerves thought to trigger your painful symptoms. 

During your surgery, Dr. Brooks alleviates the compression on your trigger points, helping you find relief. Though each surgery varies, migraine surgery usually takes 2-3 hours to complete, and most patients can return home to recover the same day. 

You may experience soreness or numbness at the surgical site for 1-2 weeks, and some patients report an increase in migraine headaches during this recovery time. Ultimately, after about 4-6 months, you should experience dramatic relief, though some patients report a noticeable change sooner. 

This cutting-edge surgical intervention provides 70-95% of patients with improvement or even elimination of migraines. The best part? This relief comes without the serious side effects migraine medications bring.   

Am I a candidate for migraine surgery?

Before recommending any course of treatment, Dr. Brooks carefully evaluates your symptoms, medical history, and current health to design a customized migraine treatment plan to meet your specific needs. 

While everyone is different, you might be a good candidate for migraine headache surgery if you’re in good overall health and other types of migraine treatment, including lifestyle changes and medications, haven’t helped alleviate your pain.

Discover the best treatment for your migraines by contacting our experts at Brooks Plastic Surgery in Hollywood, Florida. Simply call our friendly staff at 954-256-5838 and schedule an evaluation with Dr. Brooks.