Cosmetic surgery may help migraine sufferers. This isn’t the first time that cosmetic surgery techniques have been used to help ease the crippling pain associated with migraines – Botox has already been used for several years.

However new research now shoes that cosmetic surgery to help smooth wrinkles on the forehead may have the unexpected side effect of also curing migraines.

Dr Bahman Guyuron from University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio noticed that patients who had surgery to smooth forehead wrinkles said their headaches were either improved or cured completely. 60 pc found that the headaches improved whilst 29 pc said that they had had no more migraines since surgery.

The technique consists of deactivating trigger sites in the muscles or nerves that produce pain. For most patients at least two trigger sites were targeted. The trigger sites were tested prior to surgery with Botox to confirm that the surgery would be in the correct places.

69 patients were evaluated and after five years, 88 pc of these had a positive long-term response to the surgery. Headaches were significantly decreased in 59 pc and completely eliminated in 29 pc. The remaining patients found no change.

Migraine attacks were less frequent after the surgery with the average migraine frequency decreased from about eleven to four per month. Also, when attacks occurred, they didn’t last as long with the average length of time reducing from 34 to eight hours.

Although this isn’t been heralded as a cure, it is an interesting step forward in migraine research. Although it doesn’t help everybody, it may be worth taking the gamble and paying for surgery for those people where migraines seriously affect their quality of life.