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The FDA has approved Botox as a preventive treatment for chronic migraine headaches in adults. Migraines’ three times more common in women than men are characterized by intense pulsing or throbbing pain. Chronic migraine patients have a headache more than 14 days of the month.

For chronic migraine, Botox is given about every 12 weeks as multiple injections around the head and neck to try to dull future headache symptoms. Researchers are still trying to determine how Botox works on migraines, but one theory is that it blocks pain signals from reaching nerve endings.

Last year Botox worldwide sales were divided equally between medical and cosmetic uses, reports the New York Times. However, Allergan, the maker of Botox, believes its sales as a medical treatment may soon eclipse its sales as a cosmetic wrinkle treatment. The injectable is also approved to treat uncontrolled blinking; crossed eyes; certain neck muscle spasms; underarm sweating; and muscle spasticity in the hands and elbows.

In other Botox news, British scientists report that they’ve developed a way to refine the anti-wrinkle treatment to improve its use for treating Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy and chronic migraine. The researchers produced a refined Botox-like molecule, which they said would be practical for clinical use but would not have unwanted toxic effects.

“It will now be possible to produce Botox-based medicines in a safer and more economical way,” said Bazbek Davletov, who led the study at Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

Davletov said the new refining technique could allow scientists to produce new forms of Botox with wider practical medicinal uses, for example as a long-term painkiller.

Read the FDA press release on its approval of Botox to treat chronic migraine and the article on refining Botox, Scientists Find Way to Refine Botox for New Uses.

Everyone knows that Botox fights wrinkles; a new study shows it could also fight pain in some patients with a debilitating nerve compression disorder called thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS).

Researchers at Johns Hopkins reported that patients treated with a single, low-dose injection of Botox in a neck muscle had a reduction in short-term pain.

The study, published in Pain Medicine, suggests that Botox could be a minimally-invasive alternative to the surgery used to treat TOS, which involves removal of the first rib and severing one of the muscles in the neck.

Paul J. Christo, M.D., M.B.A., an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the studyâ??s lead author, says: There haven’t been many alternatives to the use of surgery to treat this syndrome. Botox seems to be an effective treatment that avoids surgery’s obvious drawbacks, such as its invasive nature and long recovery time.

To maintain the results, Botox injections would have to be repeated every few months, since the effects donâ??t last. Dr. Christo says patients should be able to receive repeated injections of Botox into the muscle over time, though some could develop antibodies to the compound with excessive use, which would mean the toxin would no longer block pain.

As research continues on this new use for Botox, its use as a wrinkle fighter is as popular as ever. The most recent procedural statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons showed it was the number one minimally-invasive cosmetic procedure performed last year in the country. It is also one of the procedures Dr. Jonov performs in his state-certified officed-based surgery center in Seattle.

For more information on this new use for Botox, read the Johns Hopkins Medicine release titled Botox Eases Nerve Pain in Certain Patients.