Nerve decompression is one of the more promising surgeries availiable for migrain patients. At least for those of us who might have a pinched nerve in the head or neck that is responcible for our headaches, a neuralgia.
Doctor Ivan Ducic is a plastic surgeon, Georgetown University Hospital Washington, DC who is performing this kind of operations.
Says the good doctor - "sometimes a pinched nerve in the head is to blame. In the procedure, he removes a small part of the muscle that's pressing on the nerve, which relieves the pain. The nerve theoretically, after it's been decompressed, should regenerate and clinically then respond to no headaches or at least diminished headaches after the surgery."
This surgery has about 80% success rate. For the other 20%, a second surgery might be required to remove the nerve completely. "These nerves have nothing to do with the function of your brain, arms, legs. You can not be paralyzed from them because they're only purely sensory nerves."
The criteria for surgery is as follows:
- A patient has suffered from migraines for at least six months.
- Seeing a headache specialist.
- Feel tenderness in the back, side and front of the head.
Link bellow contains a video:
link: Medical Breakthroughs: Migraine Headache Surgery
related article: Nerve Decompression Procedure For Treating Persistent Occipital Neuralgia Headaches
3 comments:
This is a great blog! Interesting, informative and helpful.
Thank you Sir. We try :P .
This was a hot topic at the American Headache Society Scientific meeting in June. Fully one half day (that's alot!) of the conference was devoted to occipital nerve blocks and the surgery you mention to prevent headaches.
At the present time it seems to work best for cluster headache and less so for chronic migraine.
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