Surgeons have a discovered a surgical solution to the crippling pain from migraines – by removing the muscle from the head that causes the attacks.

In the past, many people have turned to drugs or complementary therapy to try and prevent and lessen migraine attacks. However in the past few years, cosmetic surgery techniques appear to also be able to help. Botox has been used for some years to help reduce migraine attacks by paralyzing the muscle causing the problems.

Now, Harley Street plastic surgeon Professor Thomas Muehlberger has gone one step further by removing the problem muscle.

The ‘corrugator’ muscle, which is found just above the eyebrows, has been found to be a trigger for migraines in a large proportion of people thanks to the way it sometimes interacts with the nerves in the head. As the removal of the muscle will only work in people whose migraines are triggered by the corrugator muscle, Muehlberger uses Botox in the first instance to paralyse the muscle and check to see if the Botox has made any difference.

If after eight weeks, the patient has had significantly fewer migraine attacks, Muehlberger goes ahead with the surgery. The operation takes around an hour to complete and patients can go home the same day.

Studies have shown that over a third of patients who have elected to have the surgery have been free from migraines for over a year since the surgery. Some others have seen significantly fewer headaches over the same time period.

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