Migraine surgery:
The selection procedure before migraine surgery
During our consultation we will explain the treatment to you in detail. The consultation is free of charge and you decide if you want to start the treatment.
The treatment starts with a Botox test
Your symptoms and pain points determine where the test is performed. The actual operation is therefore first simulated and thus the probability of success of the operation is determined.
The injected botulinum toxin relaxes certain muscles during the following months, which leads to a reduction in nerve inflammation. Over a period of eight weeks, the changes in symptoms are recorded in a migraine diary. If there is a noticeable improvement in the symptoms, the possibilities of an operation can be discussed.
The migraine operation
The most common surgical procedure is to remove the corrugator muscle, a small muscle in the eyebrow area. The corrugator muscles are used exclusively to form frown lines and have nothing to do with the movement of the eyelids. They have a purely mimetic function.
The facial surgeon makes a small (later no longer visible) incision in the eyelid crease.
During the operation, the nerve in the muscle is neither removed nor damaged. The removal of the muscle prevents migraine symptoms from arising due to nerve irritation in the trigger area above the eyebrow.
Pain points at the temple can be treated surgically according to the same principle by relieving another nerve branch. A third possibility is to uncover some nerves in the neck.
The decisive factor here is that the respective areas are determined individually beforehand. Before the operation there is always the Botox test, which shows the effectiveness of a surgical intervention.
In the meantime, several hundred patients have shown how migraine surgery works in the long term: around 35 percent of the patients were completely free of migraine symptoms even one year after the operation. The frequency of attacks and the intensity of pain were more than halved in a further 55 percent.
If you have any questions about migraine, you can reach us in our practice rooms:
Dr. med. Thomas Franke,
Specialist for oral and maxillofacial surgery
Stuttgarter Platz 1
10627 Berlin.