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Chronic Pain And Botox Treatment

medical aesthetic training For people who experience chronic pain, this is a huge intrusion on their personal lives, and is very aggravating. It does not matter where the pain is, the fact that it gets worse on activity and can even disrupt a person's sleep means it can become the reason why people develop a low mood, perform poorly at work and have difficulty managing normal daily activities at home.

There have been significant advances in chronic pain management over the last decade or two. Pain specialists help many patients worldwide that have chronic pain symptoms, using a variety of techniques. Botulinum toxin has been explored as an option in chronic pain management, and in this article we shall take a look at whether this management strategy actually helps patients with chronic back pain or not.

The Effects of Botox

Many of you have heard of celebrities getting botox injections to get rid of fine lines and wrinkles on their face. Most people don't talk about some of the other uses of botox, that are not for cosmetic reasons such as blepharospasm, other spastic disorders and muscle spasms, and in some cases cerebral palsy. Nerve signals that normally flow through fibres in the muscles are blocked, and the muscles relax which helps to reduce the pain.

Nerve fibre transmissions that get blocked from botox are thought to also block the pain signals, so the pain receptors in the nerves will not receive them. There are even some researchers now that say that chronic neck pain has been partially alleviated using these injections. The effect was more pronounced when combined with physical therapy. This combination works because botox relaxes the muscles and physical therapy helps increase the flexibility of the muscles, thus reducing pain.

In addition to this, botox presents itself as a safer option as it is performed by licensed medical practitioners and is not associated with the side effects that oral medication can bring with them.

So now that we have seen that botox can actually help reduce pain, why is it not offered as a first line treatment to patients with chronic pain?

This can be explained in a few ways.

Firstly, the cost. Because botox treatments are more costly than painkillers, people make this their preferred method to relieve chronic back pain. Botox injections are not the first thing considered for these problems. Since there are only a small amount of studies that use botox for chronic pain management, it is still premature to say that this should be the first method to treat these problems, and more studies are being done at this time. Specially trained experts are the only ones who can legally administer botox, and not all clinics have the properly trained individuals. Travelling the country trying to find the right specialist can be quite an expensive venture. Cosmetic industry applications are underway but at this time, the FDA has not yet approved botox as a painkiller.

There are studies that show that this could be an effective treatment, but there is much to take into account when a doctor puts together a treatment plan.

Synopsis

Patients who have chronic pain have benefited from the use of botox as a muscle relaxant. However, more studies need to be conducted into its benefits and additional cost factors may not make it the most viable option available.