Improve Migraines with Weight Loss Surgery

There is good news for people who suffer from both obesity and migraine headaches. There’s evidence that weight loss surgery can ease migraines as well as help you lose weight. Bariatric surgery in Michigan and anywhere else has been seen to improve conditions that are associated with obesity, like Type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure. That weight loss surgery can also be used to prevent or reduce the pain of migraine headaches might come as a surprise to many people.

A migraine headache is caused by the excessive dilation of blood vessels in the head. As those who suffer from migraines know, the pain is typically a pounding ache on one side of the head and the attacks are often preceded by psychological or visual disturbances called auras. Nausea and vomiting are other symptoms. Some of you know that the pain of a migraine is such that it can disable you for days.

But here’s the good news for migraine and obesity sufferers. According to researchers, people who had undergone weight loss surgery reported that the pain and frequency of their migraines had decreased six months after their bariatric surgery. The reduction in migraines suffered by about half of the patients had been cut roughly in half after their surgery and the great majority of patients were no longer disabled by the migraines they still had. Interestingly, though these patients had lost a great deal of weight, they were still considered obese. This led researchers to believe that it was the simple shedding of weight that led to the easing of the headaches and not the resolution of the patients’ obesity.

That means that by getting bariatric surgery, you’ll not only lose weight, but your migraines will ease even before you reach your optimal weight!