Today has been brilliant.
I actually got bored. This doesn't happen. I usually don't have enough of a brain to get bored; I have enough just enough brain to lay curled in a ball and watch Netflix. But today I actually got bored! It was wonderful!
And in the afternoon I went in the backyard and played catch with Mia. The last time I felt well enough to do this was...um....December or January. Whee! I'm feeling pretty optimistic, 'specially in light of this study which says that Botox works best in 'implosive' headaches, which are what I get.
Now for FAQ
So you're lookin' all nice and wrinkle free, eh?
Nope. The injections for migraines are in different places than they are for cosmetic procedures.
Does your face feel numb?
If it does, something has gone horribly awry. The Botox weakens the muscles, not numbs them.
How does it work?
Neurologists would like to know, too. This is how I understand it.
There's a thing called the trigeminal nerve that sits right on top of your jaw; one part branches out to your temple, another to your cheekbone, and another down to your jaw. Researchers are discovering that this nerve pathway is important in (possibly) tripping the initial chemical reactions that trigger migraines. Somehow. (The Mayo Clinic.is a little vague on the topic.) So the Botox is injected into the muscles over the jaw, jawline, temple, and brow. Weaken the muscle and you weaken the pain response, is the strategy I guess. There's a very large skeletal-muscular component of my migraines (my neck hates me), so there were injections there as well.
The internet's a little hazy on this topic, so if you have questions email me or leave a comment. Meanwhile, here's a pretty good overall review of the topic.
2 comments:
My understanding of it is this: there are different types of sensory neurons in the trigeminal ganglia (which is where the cell bodies of sensory neurons live, which are part of the peripheral nervous system), some of them for touch, some of them for temperature, and some of them for pain. The pain ones come in a variety of flavors, including the kind that monitor your muscles--they're the ones who pick up the signal that you've torn or overworked a muscle and tell your brain it hurts. Anyway, if you've got too high muscle tone all the time in places like your head and jaw (for whatever reason: genetic, stress, etc.), which is not good for the muscles, then these muscle-pain sensory neurons are always going to be activated. Unfortunately, there's this little phenomenon called windup: when there's a pain signal coming in over a long period of time to the parts of your central nervous system responsible for processing and sending the signal to your brain, these parts get all whackadoo and amp up the signal--they sound the red alert and the crew man their battle stations (or action stations, if you're into BSG). When this happens in the face and head on a long-term basis, it's thought that the constant windup leads to things like migraines. Therefore if you reduce the constant, overly-high muscle tone with botox (which paralyzes the signaling mechanism of another set of neurons called motor neurons, which live in your central nervous system and tell your muscles to move through special projections onto the muscle fibers), you give the sensory neurons a chance to relax and tell their wound-up partners in the central nervous system to cool it and cut that windup crap out, leading to fewer migraines. At least that's one idea of how it works. I'm glad to hear you're feeling a wee bit better!
Thanks, Neurofemme. That actually makes sense. More than anything I've been able to find online. I knew you'd be able to explain it. :)
Post a Comment