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CNN Live Today

Botox May Help Headache Sufferers

Aired June 18, 2002 - 12:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now turning to health news, you know it as the wonder wrinkle remover, but researchers now say Botox may find a new use in the treatment of problem headaches. CNN Medical Correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, is here with the latest research.

Pretty interesting development, Sanjay.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it really is, Kyra.

There's no question, Botox is a known toxin that scares a lot of people. But we have heard about it recently, and certainly in terms of wrinkles and things like that. But I guess a lot of doctors for years have been using it also to treat headaches. Not your typical garden variety headaches, but the sort of headaches, like migraines, as well as chronic daily headaches. That's more than 15 a month.

So some pretty significant headaches. It didn't make a lot of sense that Botox would actually help with migraines, but it appears to. In fact, some of the results are pretty interesting.

Let me give you an idea of how it works to start. If you actually go to your doctor's office, they're actually going to probably inject you with several different Botox injections really all over your head, starting off in your forehead most likely, kind of all along here. You've got to be careful to stay away from the eyes and the brows. One of the side effects of Botox is certainly can cause a droopy eyelid or a droopy brow. So they have to stay a little bit higher.

But certainly several injections all along the forehead. And then, as well as that, they actually would do several injections in other places as well, such as your temporalis region over here, which is an area of the head that also -- where a lot of headaches will originate.

In addition to those two areas, they'll often have these Botox injections along the back of the neck on both sides. Now again, migraines do not actually originate from your neck, but neck pain can serve as a trigger for migraine headaches, as well as shoulders. And that's why you'll sometimes see them do Botox injections down the shoulders.

There can be several Botox injections, up to 30 to 40 injections in a single sitting. But what that usually involves is about 70 to 140 units of Botox. And the number is not that important, but just for a frame of reference, about a million units is what it takes to usually get you sick.

Now it appears to be working, Kyra. There has been a lot of studies on this now, and they have found that out of the over 100 patients they've looked at, they've had a significant improvement. That's a 4.3 out of five, is what the people are asked to evaluate in improvement in terms of their headaches.

They don't require as many pills. They have also had fewer migraine headaches per month. They have had fewer -- less duration of the headaches. And most interestingly, fewer side effects from the migraine -- from the Botox for migraines as well.

This was sort of found serendipitously. Someone was having their Botox to treat their wrinkles or to treat something else and they noticed that their headaches started to go away. Doctors started to notice that in the mid 1990s and have been using this for a few years now and appear to be getting pretty good results.

PHILLIPS: All right. Now Sanjay, you are the brain doctor, so explain this to me. We know how it works on the wrinkles, but how does it actually work on the pain?

GUPTA: Yes. And we get a lot of questions about that. Because you know the way migraines work is sort of a complicated thing. But a couple of things. One, it does appear to relax the muscles and essentially paralyze the muscles, which may be of some benefit in sort of a tension muscular headaches.

As far as the migraines go, a couple of doctors I've spoken to who have been doing a lot of research on this think that the same way Botox actually paralyzes muscles, the same way that it interferes with muscles contraction, it also stops pain transmission. And this is sort of new stuff. Scientists are tinkering around with this trying to figure out exactly how it works. But it does appear that this toxin, this known toxin, does interfere with the way pain is transmitted in the body.

PHILLIPS: Interesting. Sanjay Gupta, our medical correspondent, thank you.

GUPTA: Good seeing you.

PHILLIPS: Good seeing you too.

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