June is National Migraine and Headache Awareness Month and a good opportunity to remind migraine sufferers that you don’t have to suffer with chronic migraines. In fact, struggling with migraines can have a significant and long-lasting impact on your quality of life and your health.
At New Tampa Interventional Pain & Sports Medicine, pain management specialist Jose De La Torre, MD, offers comprehensive care for migraine sufferers who can’t find relief with over-the-counter medications. Dr. De La Torre customizes a treatment plan that not only relieves existing migraine pain, but also helps prevent additional migraines in the future.
Read on to learn more about how migraines might be impacting your life more than you realize.
Migraines are a disabling type of headache that can cause intense head pain and also trigger symptoms like persistent nausea, vomiting, and chronic fatigue.
If you have recurrent migraines and don’t seek treatment for them, it can affect your long-term health and your overall quality of life. Untreated migraines might be increasing your risk for:
Obesity interacts with migraines in two ways. If you’re already obese, you might be at increased risk for developing migraines. Additionally, carrying around extra weight can also make your migraine pain worse.
According to the American Migraine Foundation, half of the people with migraines also have anxiety and depression.
For some, anxiety and depression are triggers for recurrent migraines. In other cases, the chronic pain of migraines leads to long-term mental health issues.
Epilepsy and migraines both involve disturbances in your sensory nerves. If you have one condition, your risk for developing the other nearly doubles.
For some people, certain underlying genetic causes can contribute to both migraines and epilepsy.
People who have chronic migraines may be at a higher risk for also having heart disease, especially if you have migraines with auras.
Migraine sufferers might also be more likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke. This is partly due to the link among obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and migraines.
Your gut and brain are connected in complex ways. If you have migraines, you might be at an increased risk for also developing gastrointestinal issues like inflammatory bowel syndrome and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Though migraine pain alone can be devastating to your quality of life, it can also increase your risk for even more pain.
People with chronic migraines may be at higher risk for developing other pain disorders, including fibromyalgia. These conditions might be linked because of genetic predispositions or because of the side effects, which can include migraines and headaches, that result from taking certain pain medications.
To lower your risk for devastating migraine side effects and find long-term relief of migraine pain, we offer comprehensive treatments like Botox® injections. Dr. De La Torre successfully uses Botox to treat chronic migraine sufferers who experience 15 or more migraines a month.
In a series of in-office treatments, Botox can effectively reduce your existing headache pain and prevent their return. Treatment works so well because the medication in the injection targets the nerve endings that play a role in migraine headaches.
Find out if Botox can work for your chronic migraines by calling New Tampa Interventional Pain & Sports Medicine or by booking a consultation online today.
