Operations against migraines for the first time – salzburg.ORF.at
Health
There is now new hope for the many of those who suffer from migraines. According to estimates, it is about eleven percent of the total population in Austria – especially women with excruciating chronic headaches. Now there is a surgical method that puts an end to this.
400 of these interventions have already been carried out in Salzburg – with great success, as experts say.
Women in particular often suffer so severely from migraine attacks that even life planning becomes difficult. Some are even afraid of motherhood, like Jacqueline from Upper Austria: “I would have had to take medication all the time and lie down a lot. My husband and I wanted a child but there were many concerns.”
Today the woman has two small children – after an operation in the Hospital of the Brothers of Mercy in Salzburg.
pinpoint pain
Surgeon Elisabeth Russe refers to the eyelids, where the painful areas press against the forehead – or on the temples: “You create space for the nerves that are pinched. But only patients who can pinpoint the pain themselves can do it. Then you can also test it out.”
Healed “born again” after many years
The risk is low – but the effect is strong, emphasizes the surgeon: “90 percent respond to the therapy. You give the patient control over their life.” One patient says it took a while before you no longer felt dead in some places: “But after that it was a new life.”
And the master car mechanic Max from Braunau am Inn was the first man to have an operation in the Salzburg hospital: “I had the attacks for over 40 years, five days a week. Today, my employees say I’m a completely new person.”
The only provider in Austria
Friedrich Hoppichler is medical director at the Brothers of Charity Hospital: “We are the only ones in Austria who offer this. There are others who advertise it that way, but inject Botox. This is a sham pack. Operations like ours are only available in the USA.”