Botox for headaches

General
1

I had a posterior fossa decompression, split of the tonsil and spinal laminectomy of the C1 boney portion, a second decompression with the tonsil cauterized, and a third surgery installing a VP shunt on my skull.

Currently, I am taking Cymbalta to treat residual pain but nothing is helping the headaches. I have been referred to a headache specialist neurologist and was told by the nurse to research Botox for headaches to have some preliminary information. This is something the FDA has approved for chronic headaches.

Would like to hear from anyone with experience in this treatment. Or if you have had similar headache issues, not resolved by surgery or shunt, what has been done to treat?

Thanks!

Alice

2

I currently take Cymbalta and it does help, but it's just not enough and doesn't do much for headaches. Hoping for a miracle!



Emmaline said:

I know this has been brought up before, so I did a search. There was a number of threads on it, but couldn't find anyone here that actually did Botox.

They were on Cymbalta as well, I've heard it works well. There is only one way to find out right? Good luck!

3

I am being treated for migraines and dystonia with Botox injections. It helps with the headaches very well. I went from daily headaches to about 3a month. It is amazing for my neck stiffness as well.

4

Hi Alice - I actually had Botox injections for migraines last January. At the time, I had not yet had surgery. Unfortunately, I had a pretty severe adverse reaction and wouldn’t do it again.

I was fine for about 3 days and then all of a sudden, really bad neck pain started to kick in. It got worse and was accompanied by a sort of neck paralysis - I couldn’t hold my neck up on my own for most routine activities. The paralysis lasted about a month, the neck pain 3 months. I found the injections to have no effect on my headaches/migraines.

That being said, I know a lot of people have experienced success with Botox, so I wouldn’t advise anyone to not get it, I would just say to know the side effects beforehand. My then-doctor did not advise me that anything like this could happen. Good luck!

5

I did the Botox injections about 5 months ago and, unfortunately, didn't have any success. They told me that some people feel relief right away, some after 10-14 days, while others don't have success with the injections. It's going to be different from person to person so what didn't work for me may work out great for you.

I would say that based on the success that some people have had with it that it's worth the try.

Matt