dr lowenstein

What Sets Us Apart?

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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What’s in a name?

The term “migraine surgery” was coined as a simplified way for the public to understand that there is a surgical procedure to improve migraine headache symptoms.  In fact, the more appropriate name for this procedure is “nerve decompression surgery for the relief of headache and migraine symptoms.”  That’s a bit too wordy, but unfortunately, the…

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Tips for Managing Migraines this Holiday Season

The holiday season is typically a busy one. Even this year, many of the people we speak with are planning to attend holiday events either in person or virtually. For those with migraines, an increase in activity and stress or any change in routine can trigger head pain and other symptoms. There is no time…

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HEAT and your headaches

Weather can be a trigger for migraines as well as several other headache syndromes.  I’m finding that this time of year in Southern California, and even in Colorado where my Denver office is located, can be the worst time of year for those yearning for headache relief.  Los Angeles recorded record-breaking temperatures of 121 degrees…

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dr. blake

Headache 360 – The Headache Neurologist on the Cutting Edge

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Headache 360 Podcast, a place to 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 our next episode of the Headache 360 Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Adam Lowenstein. I have a very special…

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Headache 360 Podcast: Procedures for Migraines and Headaches

Speaker 1: 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, and today we are again, speaking…

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migraine diva jamie sanders

Headache 360 Podcast: Migraine Diva With Jamie Sanders

Dr. Lowenstein: Hi and welcome to the Headache 360 Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Adam Lowenstein. I have a really interesting guest today and a very unique one. Jamie Sanders is a blogger and I guess I personally think even more importantly, a patient and migraine advocate, an advocate for patients with migraine. She has…

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Occipital Neuralgia Patient

Dizziness and Headaches… The Imbalance of Pain

Dizziness, imbalance, and disorientation in headache and neck pain patients One of the most frequent questions posted to facebook on migraine headaches and tension headaches forums involves some aspect of dizziness, imbalance, and disorientation.  While headache patients may be used to pain, waking up dizzy or having balance issues with or without pain can be…

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cure for migraines

What does a “cure” for migraine mean?

There are going to be a lot of folks who respond to this without reading further, who will insist that there is no cure for migraine headaches, and who don’t want to consider things outside of their personal experience.  The following discussion is for everyone else…. Google the word “cure” and you will find the…

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kelly lott massage therapist

Headache 360 Podcast: The Migraine Miracle Massage Therapist

Dr. Lowenstein: Hi, and welcome to the Headache 360 podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Adam Lowenstein. As we’ve discussed many times before on this podcast, my goal here is to try and get some expertise from specialists who patients with chronic headaches and migraines will often see during a course of their care. Today, we…

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Dr Andrew Germanovich

Headache 360 Podcast: Dr. Lowenstein and Dr. Germanovich

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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Migraine Surgery Word Map

Migraine Recurrence and Revision

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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The use of Botox for Headaches

Botox is being increasingly used for off-label treatments, particularly in the treatment of migraine headaches and occipital neuralgia like we do at Migraine Surgery Specialty Center. This is a nice little video from the Plastic Surgery Channel that discusses some off-label uses of Botox.But what does “off label” mean? When something like Botox is “approved” by…

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Migraines and Hopelessness

A young lady was in my office recently, and like so many patients with pain from migraine headaches and/or occipital neuralgia, she had been too many many doctors before me.  We discussed the possibility of doing Targeted Injection Mapping, and she became very emotional.  She had been through so much over the past three years…

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Head Trauma, Whiplash, and Migraine Headaches

A traffic accident in Los Angeles?  Football injury in college?  Even the recent surge in popularity of kickboxing has produced too many head trauma patients that experience chronic migraine headaches after their injury. I recently had an interesting conversation with a woman who had “post-concussion” headaches, but when I asked if she had isolated trauma…

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Bad Dreams and Waking to a Migraine

Ever have that dream where you are in crazy Los Angeles traffic and need to be somewhere but can’t get there and then… you wake up to a migraine?  Out in the desert outside of Phoenix or Las Vegas and it’s crazy hot and you cant get cool or water and you wake up to…

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The Differences Between Migraine Surgery and a Nerve Simulator

Recently I have found a lot of confusion between migraine surgery and nerve stimulator placement. When discussing surgery with patients or answering their questions online, it seems clear that some patients think they have had migraine surgery but describe the placement of wires and the use of remotes… none of this is used in migraine…

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Occipital Neuralgia vs. Migraine Headache

Today on Facebook I got a great question that I think is important….  “Are ON flares also called migraines?” In fact the word “migraine” has a broad meaning, including many different kinds of severe headaches with different causes.  Some migraines are caused by issues in or near the brain, such as dilated blood vessels or…

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Migraine Headache Severity

Recently one of the Facebook groups for migraine headaches and occipital neuralgia contained and interesting post.  A migraine headache patient began by saying that she did not mean to insult anyone, but she could not understand how some migraine headache sufferers could have severe pain and still go about their lives.  She alluded that such…

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Why is a workup important?

We have many patients with migraine headaches who see an opportunity for a surgical cure for their pain and want to proceed immediately to surgery at Migraine Surgery Specialty Center without any other workup- this is a mistake.  Every patient who has surgery for their migraines needs a neurology workup including an MRI of the…

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Rocky Mountain Migraine Headache

This week I’m spending time in Colorado with my family and as usual, dealing with a migraine on arrival to altitude.  Altitude headaches are not uncommon for both migraine headache patients as well as those who don’t suffer from migraines.  There are 2 main issues that our heads need to deal with at altitude- oxygen…

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Everyone is different, even when they are the same

In my perusing around Facebook and the forums dedicated to headaches and occipital neuralgia, I see so many who find comfort that they are not alone, and in fact one of my previous posts highlighted that even NBA basketball stars get migraines.  Patients who have suffered long and felt alone should find comfort in the fact…

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Dizziness and Migraine Head “aches”

Dizziness is often a symptom of migraines and occipital neuralgia, and can be seen both with and without associated pain.  Because balance and dizziness are managed by a region of the inner ear called the vestibule, migraines that manifest in dizziness alone are termed “vestibular migraines”.  Similar to “ocular migraines”, these episodes can manifest as…

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Having a migraine- a Doctor’s Perspective

My mother tells a story about me when I was 9 and had a headache so bad I would not stop crying and would not leave my room.  I don’t remember that, but I know that I have had severe headaches as long as I can remember.  As a child, I took so much aspirin…

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