What Is Causing My Leg Cramps During the Night?
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Botox®: It's Not Just for Wrinkles
Chronic pain can really get you down, whether you’re suffering from migraine, arthritis, nerve pain, or disorders that cause constant or intermittent pain across your body, like fibromyalgia.
At Progressive Spine & Sports Medicine in Ramsey, New Jersey, our expert physicians provide a range of pain management options, including using Botox for migraine and other pain issues.
What you need to know about Botox
Botox is derived from botulinum toxin, which is typically found in spoiled food. When isolated, purified, and injected, it has a paralytic effect. Originally, doctors used this paralytic effect to freeze muscles around the eyes of patients with strabismus (lazy eye) to correct skewed vision.
By 2002, Botox Cosmetic was FDA-approved for use as a temporary aesthetic and became popular as a cosmetic treatment as it freezes tiny muscles that control dynamic wrinkles (the ones that appear if you squint or smile).
Using Botox for migraine and chronic pain
Botox soon became even more interesting to doctors and researchers as more ways to use the neurotoxin showed up. Patients receiving injections for aesthetic purposes noted relief from pain symptoms, and research began in earnest to find out what conditions Botox could potentially treat as a pain management tool.
Migraine
Persistent migraine can make your day, week, or even month quite miserable, with unrelenting or recurring pain dogging your every step. Migraine affects an estimated 47 million people in the United States alone, and finding a treatment that works can be difficult.
Many patients who receive Botox injections for facial wrinkles reported that their migraine pain was lessened after their Botox treatment. By 2010, Botox Chronic Migraine was FDA-approved to treat chronic migraines.
From there, more studies were undertaken to see if Botox could be used for other types of pain as well. As it turns out, Botox may be effective in treating a range of conditions that cause pain, including:
Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common type of joint pain, and the number of people affected in the US is predicted to reach 67 million by 2030. Studies have revealed that many patients with OA showed significant improvement in their knee joint pain after Botox injections.
Nerve pain
Nerve pain, or neuropathic pain, is common in patients with spinal injuries or those with diabetes. Botox has also been shown to be effective in reducing nerve pain from these and other conditions. It’s even effective in reducing pain signals associated with phantom limb syndrome in patients who have lost a limb to amputation.
If you are struggling with relentless pain and want a forward-thinking pain management option, call 201-273-9702, or request an appointment online.
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