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.

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Current migraine drugs do not work for everyone. Botox is one option for migraines but is not a permanent solution and also does not work in all cases. However one cosmetic surgeon has discovered that by combining a forehead lift with Botox can help relieve the pain of migraines in around 90 percent of patients, with few side effects.

Dr Guyuron discovered that by removing the supercilli muscle in the face – the major muscle involved in frowning – seemed to stop or lessen migraines in many of his patients. Dr Guyuron believes that migraine headaches are caused by nerves in the face, neck and/or scalp being irritated by overly tight muscles so by loosening up these muscles, the pain can be cured.

The procedure involves having Botox injected into the supercilli muscle, freezing it and releasing some of the pressure on the surrounding nerves. A small cut is then made into the muscle and a small part is removed. The gap in the muscle is filled in with fat, normally taken from the upper eyelid. This cosmetic procedure not only tends to ease migraine headache pain but also smooths out frown lines giving the patient a more youthful look.

Dr Guyuron has started some tests on the procedure by comparing this surgery against a dummy treatment where patients are operated on but their muscles are left intact. Initial results show that 57 percent of patients who had the full operation have been fully cured after a year compared with just 4 percent on the dummy operation. 83 percent on patients who had the full operation said that after a year, their migraines had fully stopped or the pain was significantly less.

Other doctors have been working on similar procedures and have reported similar results.

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In the past, many people have turned to drugs or complementary therapy to try and prevent and lessen migraine attacks. However in the past few years, cosmetic surgery techniques appear to also be able to help. Botox has been used for some years to help reduce migraine attacks by paralyzing the muscle causing the problems.

Now, Harley Street plastic surgeon Professor Thomas Muehlberger has gone one step further by removing the problem muscle.

The ‘corrugator’ muscle, which is found just above the eyebrows, has been found to be a trigger for migraines in a large proportion of people thanks to the way it sometimes interacts with the nerves in the head. As the removal of the muscle will only work in people whose migraines are triggered by the corrugator muscle, Muehlberger uses Botox in the first instance to paralyse the muscle and check to see if the Botox has made any difference.

If after eight weeks, the patient has had significantly fewer migraine attacks, Muehlberger goes ahead with the surgery. The operation takes around an hour to complete and patients can go home the same day.

Studies have shown that over a third of patients who have elected to have the surgery have been free from migraines for over a year since the surgery. Some others have seen significantly fewer headaches over the same time period.

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