Should I Consider Surgery to Resolve My Chronic Migraines?

One of the definitions of chronic migraines is having 15 or more headache days each month, which means that you’re spending half your life dealing with head pain. It’s an obvious conclusion that such an existence is simply unacceptable, and we couldn’t agree more.

Here at Miami Neuroscience Center, Dr. Aizik L. Wolf specializes in tough neurological conditions like migraines, and our goal is to help improve the quality of life for those who deal with frequent and debilitating head pain.

Here, we look at an approach that’s been highly successful in resolving chronic migraines in our patients — nerve decompression surgery.

Relieving the pressure on your nerves

The concept behind nerve decompression surgery is to relieve the pressure on peripheral sensory nerve branches that act as trigger points for your head pain.

The more commonly involved trigger points that are associated with migraines include:

• Frontal points above your eyes and in your forehead
• Temporal points around your temples
• Rhinogenic points in your nose and behind your eyes
• Occipital, which includes the back of your head around to your eyes

After identifying your trigger points, Dr. Wolf removes any materials irritating or compressing the sensory nerves, such as muscles, small blood vessels, or bony tissues.

While the surgery may be located in your head, it’s far from brain surgery. Dr. Wolf performs nerve decompression surgery on an outpatient basis because he’s not accessing your central nervous system at any point. 

Candidates for nerve decompression surgery

Nearly 12% of Americans experience migraines, and between 5% and one-third of these people have what we call refractory migraine headaches. The term “refractory” refers to the unresponsiveness of these headaches to traditional treatments, namely medications.  Or, it might describe a person’s intolerance of the medicines used to treat migraines.

Whatever the issue, when you qualify as having refractory migraine headaches, you need to look for solutions that don’t rely on medications. One such solution may lie in nerve decompression surgery.

Nerve decompression surgery for migraines — a history of success

While we can provide you with some of our own stories of success when it comes to reducing migraines through nerve decompression surgery, there’s plenty of research to back it up.

For example, one analysis looked at 18 studies that involved 628 patients and found that between 68% and 93% of patients obtained satisfactory results from nerve decompression surgery. 

Another meta-analysis gathered findings from 68 studies and concluded that nerve decompression surgery led to an overall significant reduction in the severity, duration, and frequency of migraine headaches. This analysis also concluded that there’s “Strong evidence for the safety profile and complication rate of migraine surgery.”

To explore whether nerve decompression surgery might hold the key to relieving your chronic migraines, contact our office in South Miami, Florida, to schedule a consultation.