Monday, July 29, 2013

Medical uses and stigma associated with botox

Botox can be used to help with migraines, cerebral palsy, and overactive bladders. However, Botox users face the stigma attached with using a cosmetic product for medical purposes.

A cosmetic procedure popular among Hollywood stars can now be used to supposedly cure chronic migraines.
Botox, which is used to reverse the signs of aging is now being used to treat the neurological disorder.
More than 42,000 Kiwis suffer from chronic migraines every year and when it strikes the sufferer can be out of action for up to 72 hours.
But Botox has been proven to successfully treat the debilitating condition as well as other medical conditions.
"We can use it for cerebral palsy children, it can help them to walk again, for people who have spastic syndromes in their neck where they have chronic pain in their neck," Dr Garsing Wong from Sapphire Migraine Clinic told ONE News.
"It can even be injected into bladders, for people who over-active bladders now."
Botulinum Toxin or Botox is one of the most poisonous substances known to man, but the small dose used for treatment are less toxic than drugs you can buy over the counter.
Injections are applied to places that hold a lot of tension and through paralysing the muscle or relaxing it the treatment is able to reduce the pain at the trigger points.
But the stigma attached to Botox remains.
"The first thing, I think, that pops into your head are all those people in LA and stuff and their foreheads are literally frozen and first of you all you think; everyone's going to judge me," said Thea Lyle, Migraine Sufferer.
Ms Lyle said when she was first going to have botox to help with her migraines she was quite apprehensive about it.
But Ms Lyle is only one of hundreds of people who have had the procedure at the Sapphire Migraine Clinic.
For those who combine it with intensive physiotherapy there is a 90% success rate.
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