Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Research Shows Botox Effective Against Most Severe Kinds of Headaches

Aired June 18, 2002 - 08:37   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Apparently there is a new use for Botox. You've heard the reports about this deadly toxin being used for getting rid of wrinkles. But now new research shows Botox is effective against the most severe kinds of headaches.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now from CNN Center in Atlanta.

Sanjay, good morning.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Daryn.

Yes, it's absolutely right. It's a deadly toxin. We've been hearing a lot about it, certainly with relationship to wrinkles, but this deadly toxin is now being used for headaches. It's something that's actually been used for quite some time for headaches, just sort of anecdotally. It was almost found sort of serendipitously. One of the doctors was treating a patient with Botox for something else. The patient said my headaches are going away as well, and from that, people started using it more and more for headaches.

It is not the kind of headaches -- not the garden variety headaches, as you mentioned, Daryn. These are the debilitating headaches, the really bad ones, migraines, which affect about 28 million people, or chronic daily headaches. That's more than 15 headaches a month, which affect about 10 million people. Let's give an idea of exactly how it works, and what would happen if you go to the doctor's office.

Botox injections, about 30 to 40 of them, usually starting off in the forehead, making sure to avoid the eyes and the brows. Because if you do that, sometimes you can actually paralyze that. But it would be a series of little injections all across the forehead as a starting point, and sometimes even up higher as well. But again, nothing down into the eye region or below.

Now also, with the Botox injections, unlike for wrinkles, for headaches, you also inject in the temple region as well. This is where a lot of headaches come from as well, and certainly along the back and the neck. That's where a lot of headaches start. A lot of the triggers for headaches can actually be in the neck, and so you actually inject along the neck. Sometimes people start a headache with a neck pain, and that actually radiates up to their head. After a while, Also some of the doctors are doing this, injecting all the way down into the shoulders, so that can also be a lot of shots, up to 30 to 40 shots. It can be up to 70 to 140 units of Botox. That number is not that important. Just to keep in mind that it's about 100,000 to several hundred thousand of the Botox that actually makes you sick.

Now, there is a new study that's coming out that's actually looking at this. Like I said, a lot of people use this anecdotally for some time, but now they're actually starting to document that Botox does work. It is not FDA approved yet, but people are showing its benefits. For example, people who had these significant headaches are finding that they actually have fewer migraines per month, they're having less severe migraine attacks, and very importantly, almost no side effects from this medication. It doesn't get into your bloodstream. These people are going from using 26 pills a month on average to about four pills a month on average. So significant benefits from all of that.

It is not something that you can get as I mentioned yet, Daryn. It's something the FDA has not approved, but a lot of doctors are still using it already.

KAGAN: Do they understand why it works? and how long does it last after you undergo all those injections? That sounds like a lot, 30 or 40 shots, a lot of pain to undergo something like that.

GUPTA: Yes, right, and significantly, it is a very painful headache that would actually start something like this, to start the treatment for something like this. But a lot of the patients that we talked to actually didn't complain so much about the shots; it doesn't hurt that much.

How it works is sort of an interesting question. Certainly relaxing a lot of those muscles seems to have an effect on the overall headaches, the triggers for headaches and things like that. Injecting in the forehead, as we showed, may actually stop some of the headache as well.

But here's sort of an interesting thing. The same way that Botox actually paralyzes muscles, it actually may also stop pain transmission, and that's something that scientists are just starting to toy with, finding out the different ways that pain is actually transmitted, but it appears, for whatever reason, Botox actually stops some of that pain transmission.

KAGAN: But only for a few months, right, just like the wrinkle treatment doesn't last forever, this pain relief wouldn't last as well?

GUPTA: Right, first time you get it, what the doctors are saying, the experiences are three to four months of significant pain relief. Again, it doesn't it goes away completely, but all things, fewer headaches per month, less severe headaches, but after that, if you continue to get treatments, it appears the treatments last longer and longer, up to even nine months in one of the patients that has had this done.

KAGAN: You said no side effects, but the ones you had to get here, just between your eyebrows, a few wrinkles might go away as I little bonus. That wouldn't be such a bad thing.

GUPTA: As you mentioned, Daryn, that might be the real reason that your headaches go away. For some people, wrinkles cause more headaches than others, I guess.

KAGAN: OK. We won't ask what Sanjay means about that. But Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com