One stone and two births with Botox

Get rid of headache and wrinkles with one treatment

Dr. Shafa’s dual expertise in art and science of medicine allows her to customize the injection sites and you benefit form medical as well as cosmetic result of the botox at the same time.

Young ladies headache, Migraine

Migraine headache is common in young and middle age female. This type of headache usually subsides or resolves
completely after menopause. Dr. Shafa suffers from migraines herself, which allows her to understand how debilitating they can be. Headaches can not just simply be labeled as migraines. Life threatening headaches can miss-present or misdiagnosed as migraines, that is why every patient with new onset of headache, or if the patterns and frequency or intensity of headaches are changing, needs to be evaluated , re-diagnosed and treated appropriately. Dr. Shafa’s strong internal medicine background helps her to evaluate the type of headache and offer treatment’s options. She is an expert in diagnosing and treating different types of headaches including migraine headaches. She has had hands-on experience with Botox injections for migraine headaches since 1995.

What is migraine headache?

A migraine is a type of vascular headache typically characterized by throbbing pain on one side of the head. The pain may be accompanied by nausea or vomiting and sensitivity to light, sound, and/or touch. In about 15 to 20 percent of patients, the attacks are preceded or accompanied by an aura (a group of warning symptoms, such as visual disturbances, or changes in smell or taste). Attacks can last from four to 72 hours and be debilitating.

How common is migraine headache?

According to the National Headache Foundation, about 28 million Americans experience migraines. Women are affected about three times more often than men. The condition leads to more than 157 million lost workdays a year. Migraine headaches are also common in children and occur with increasing frequency through adolescence. An estimated 8 to 23 percent of children aged 11 to 15 years experience migraine headaches.

Is migraine headache a heredity Disease?

Heredity seems to play a role in the risk for migraines. When only one parent suffers from migraines, a child has a 50 percent chance of also being affected. If both parents have migraines, a child’s risk jumps to 75 percent.

What are the triggering factors for migraine headache?

In susceptible people migraine headache can be triggered by alcohol, certain type of foods (such as blue cheese, Chocolate, etc.), changes in sleep patterns, stress, menstruation, smells, bright lights and changes in barometric pressure and more.

What is the best treatment for Migraine headache?

• Learn about type of headaches especially migraine. You know about your own body better than anyone else. Along with Dr. Shafa’s treatment and advice get the disease under your control.
• Avoid triggering factors. an important method in controlling migraine headaches is avoidance of known trigger factors. You may need to keep a food diary to identify possible foods that trigger the symptoms.
• If simple OTC pills such as Tylenol, Advil, Aleve, Excedrin etc. works for your headaches, its just fine, continue it as long as you are under doctor supervision because you can not exceed certain dosage and frequency of OTC pills.
• If OTC pills just subsides the headache or if it controls your pain just for a few hours and you experience recurrent headache, than you are better off taking migraine prescription pills. OTC pills just masks the pain that is why you may have recurrent pain, however prescription migraine pills stops the cause of migraine headache.
• Take your migraine prescription pill for headache as soon as headache is starting. You can stop the progression of the headache but you can not revise the changes in the brain that is causing the migraine headache.

What are medications options?

• If you have frequent, severe migraines you may benefit from preventive medications. These pills can stop or significantly decrease frequency, intensity and duration of the headaches. Talk about preventive treatment with Dr. Shafa.
• For unexpected migraine attacks once the symptoms start, different class of medications may be helpful. Some of the over-the-counter medications have been approved for migraine relief — Excedrin® Migraine, Advil® Migraine, and Motrin® Migraine Pain. Sumatriptan class such as Imitrex, Maxalt, Relapax, Zomig, and more may be indicated to stop the progression of the pain and cease the headache.
• Along with sumatriptans you might need stronger migraine prescription such as Vicodin which can be used only under physician supervision.
• For certain stubbern headaches Dr. Shafa may use her own way of controlling headache attacks. Occasionally hydration and IV fluid, heating treatment, customized head and neck massage in the office, Oxygen therapy and the lest but not last narcotic injection such as Demerol is offered in the office. Of course Demerol is reserved for rear attacks. Patient with frequent attacks must avoid Demerol injections because Narcotic overuse risks are way more than benefits.

How Botox or Dysport works for migraine i.e. vascular headache?

In migraine patients, it’s believed forehead muscles somehow pinch the nearby nerves and trigger the headache symptoms. BOTOX temporarily relaxes the muscles and it can eliminate or reduces migraine pain. Most of patients remain migraine-free or experience a significant reduction in the frequency and severity of attacks after botox injection for migraine.

Tension headache which is partially due to muscle spasm can trigger migraine headache or visa versa migraine triggers tension headache. Botox inhibits muscle contraction and spasm associated with tension therefore it can prevent tension related headache as well.