Introduction: Welcome to the Headache 360 podcast, a place to listen and learn about the diagnosis and treatment of chronic headache and migraine pain because information can be the best medicine. Dr. Lowenstein: Hello and welcome to the Headache 360 podcast. I am your host Dr. Adam Lowenstein. I am a board certified plastic surgeon…
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For better or for worse, nerve decompression to provide relief from headaches and neck aches has been come to be known as “migraine surgery” because many chronic headache patients carry a diagnosis of migraine disease. It’s true that “Migraine Surgery” rolls off of the tongue better than “Peripheral Nerve Decompression Surgery for the Treatment of…
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It seems there is often much misunderstanding surrounding the terminology pertaining to headaches. While “migraine headache” is indeed a specific diagnosis, there are many subtypes of migraines with terminology that can get confusing. Additionally, many headache sufferers have not yet seen a neurologist to get a migraine diagnosis, and others have diagnoses such as “chronic…
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Why ME? So often a question I get from migraine headache patients is a derivative of “Why me?” “What did I do to bring on these migraines?” “What can I change so these migraine headaches stop?” “Why are these migraines so bad for me but nobody else?” So just to address the last question specifically,…
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While we wish it never happened, an infrequent occurrence following migraine surgery is the return of headache pain. Just like any surgical procedure, migraine operations do have their rare failures, and in the case of migraine surgery, the failure rate is, fortunately, less than 10%. If you have a presence on social media, you may…
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A frequent question I get asked involves nerve injections that make things worse rather than better. Many times nerves blocks work just as they are supposed to but when they don’t, patients are often left trying to figure out why??? So what happens when nerve blocks make the pain worse? Remember that nerve blocks…
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In answering questions from Facebook groups and patients here in the office, it is becoming clear to me that many migraine sufferers may not understand that there is a BIG difference between cervical decompression surgery and the type of nerve decompression that we migraine surgeons perform in order to provide migraine relief. What is Cervical…
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Last week I did several Facebook Live “events” about the newest migraine drug Aimovig, a CGRP antagonist released last week from Amgen. (You can see those and other videos here.) There is much to be excited about. Aimovig is the first drug specifically developed for migraines. The other migraine drugs that are used for migraines…
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As many now know, microvascular decompression of several nerves in the head and neck is a proven successful therapy for the relief of migraine headaches. I was very happy to read the recent Policy Statement put forth but the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the Plastic Surgery Research Foundation. This important paper provides an…
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Why do patients from Los Angeles or Las Vegas travel to visit the Migraine Surgery Specialty Center for Migraine Relief? Dr. Lowenstein’s interest in migraine surgery stems from personal experience. From a very young age, Dr. Lowenstein has personally experienced the pain of chronic migraines, and understands like few other doctors do what a migraine…
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