April 10, 2012— — Since high school, Michael Calderone’s migraine headaches have been so overwhelming that his life would simply stop.
“I’d come home in the summer after work and pass out in a dark room with a headache so bad I’d miss the rest of the day,” said Calderone, a 52-year-old who runs an electronic building company in Cleveland. . “I was completely dysfunctional until I passed out.”
The headaches got worse as she got older.
“If it hit in the morning, I’d lose a whole day and the next day until it went down,” he said. “No bright lights, no stress, no activity – just to keep your head down so it doesn’t get worse.”
That was until he met Dr. Bahman Guyuronchairman of the department of plastic and reconstructive surgery at University Hospitals Case Medical Center.
Guyuron had pioneered a surgical technique he had discovered by accident while performing cosmetic procedures on women.
In July 2008, Guyuron had Calderone lift his forehead, releasing trapped nerves behind his eyes that had caused chronic and excruciating pain on the left side of his face.
And today, the migraines are gone.
“At one point I was taking them every day — I was incapacitated,” Calderone said. “Now, I feel like I have my life back.”
According to Migraine Research Foundation, an estimated 36 million Americans — about 10 percent of the population — suffer from migraines. They are not just headaches, but a range of neurological symptoms that can include throbbing pain in the head, nausea and visual disturbances.
Migraine is ranked in the top 20 disabling medical conditions. Three times as many women as men are affected, according to the foundation, which funds research and provides medical resources for patients.
Migraines tend to run in families. Both Calderone’s 21-year-old daughter and his niece have them.
Attacks can last from four to 72 hours and may include nausea, vomiting, as well as extreme sensitivity to sound, light, touch and smell. Tingling or numbness may also occur in the extremities or face.
But now, plastic surgeons, many of whom trained under Guyuron, offer nerve decompression surgery. He believes that 90 percent of all migraines are caused by irritation of the peripheral branches of the trigeminal nerve.
Guyuron first discovered the connection between migraine and compression of nerves by muscles, blood vessels and bones 12 years ago.
“A surgeon’s wife had a forehead lift and came in for a follow-up with me,” he said. “She told me that not only was she happy with the way she looked, but she hadn’t had a migraine in the previous six months.”
“I thought it was a coincidence, but another patient told me the same thing,” Guyuron said.
So it surveyed 314 patients who had undergone a forehead lift in the previous decade, revealing that 31 of the 39 who reported migraine headaches saw “significant improvement.”
“That was the beginning,” he said.
A study led by Guyuron published in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in 2009 found that nearly 85 percent of patients who underwent nerve decompression surgery had a 50 percent reduction in migraines.
His work suggests that a migraine results from irritation to the nerves, which release toxins and initiate a “cascade of events that ends up being a full-blown migraine in the head.”
According to Guyuron, there are four common trigger points on the face and four less common ones. Most are located on the forehead, temple, back of the head and behind the eyes.
“Each one has a different mechanism and reason for nerve irritation, and we’ve developed a surgical technique for each trigger,” he said.
Samantha Semlitz, 23, of New York is managing her migraines without surgery.
Glaser and her husband started the organization seven years ago when they saw that there was no institution dedicated to research and a lack of information.
While Samantha was hospitalized at Michigan Headache and Neurological Institutethey saw “people of all ages whose lives were ruined by headaches.”
Today, Samantha Semlitz is 23 years old and supports her parents’ work. Despite the daily pain, she is getting her master’s degree in early childhood education at Fordham University and teaching at a school in Harlem.
Her headaches build during the day to a crescendo of “throbbing pain” at night. Semlitz takes medication and said she wouldn’t consider surgery — at least not yet.
“I’ve thought about it, but decided not to,” he said. “I’m not that desperate.”
“I’ve had them so long, I’ve learned to deal with them,” she said. “I didn’t know any different.”
But she is keen to see more research and helps monitor a Facebook page for the institution and a group page for migraine sufferers.
And he continues to work on more research, but understands the challenges in raising funds.
“It’s tough,” Semlitz said. “Because people don’t die from migraines — you can’t pull out the death card.”
But he knows how desperate patients are. “You feel completely powerless and you feel like you’re dying.”
To learn more, go to Migraine Research Foundation.
