Anyone who regularly suffers from migraine attacks knows just how debilitating this brain pain can be (and how hard it is to find lasting relief). Enter Botox—a surprising solution for some people who’ve tried OTC and prescription medications with little success.
While these injections are best known for smoothing wrinkles, they’re also FDA-approved to treat a variety of health conditions, including excessive underarm sweating and, yep, chronic migraine. “Although the products are labeled differently (Botox Cosmetic versus Botox Therapeutic), they’re identical,” Lauren R. Natbony, MD, medical director at Integrative Headache Medicine of New York, tells SELF. “The key differences lie in the dosing, injection sites, and number of shots.”
To understand how Botox works for migraine relief, it’s important to know what triggers these painful attacks in the first place. The exact cause isn’t fully understood, but experts believe these episodes happen when certain nerves in your blood vessels are activated (by stress, perhaps, or a lack of sleep), sending pain signals to your brain and causing inflammation. So injecting a paralytic like Botox around those nerves can block the signals from reaching your brain in the first place—which should in theory prevent migraine pain, Dr. Natbony explains. And even though it’s not a permanent cure, at the very least “it can reduce the frequency, duration, and severity of your attacks for about 12 weeks,” she adds.
Before you get your hopes up, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, Botox is only FDA-approved to work for “chronic” migraine, or attacks lasting at least four hours, 15 or more days a month. Not to mention, the process—which involves multiple injections (155–195 units) across your forehead, neck, and shoulders—can be pretty painful, Dr. Natbony says. And getting insurance to cover the treatment isn’t easy: “Most insurers require trial and failure of at least two other preventative medications, like antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and beta-blockers,” Dr. Natbony adds. (Without coverage, you could be looking at an out-of-pocket cost of around $1,000.)
Now you may be wondering: Is Botox for migraine really a game changer—or just another so-called solution that’s bound to disappoint? We asked eight people (some who paid thousands of dollars) to share their brutally honest experiences.
“It worked for six months, but the price makes it hard to justify.”
Name: Sophia F.
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