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CEENTA ENT physician Mark Abrams, MD, appeared on WCNC's Charlotte Today on October 25th, 2023, to discuss migraines and the intranasal migraine block treatment. Learn more about this procedure and schedule your migraine block consultation with Dr. Abrams at our Rock Hill office by calling 803-327-4000.
Eugene Robinson: If you are one of the millions of Americans who get migraines, you know how devastating the pain can be and the huge impact it can have on your life. Joining us today is Dr. Mark Abrams with Charlotte Eye Ear Nose & Throat to talk about the work he's doing to give people relief. Wow, migraines! We need to talk about migraines. First, what are migraines?
Dr. Mark Abrams: Well migraines, I think, you know, there's too many people think about it as a unilateral headache. It's more of a brain cramp, honestly.
Eugene: Typically, I thought of migraines is that you got like on one side of your brain that's starting to hurt, and now it's just so excruciating that you can't do anything, but you're saying that's much more than that?
Dr. Abrams: Right, and that is the classic definition. And I think it's sort of selling the migraine short because migraines do a lot more. Especially now since we've had COVID and so we're seeing a lot of patients come in not thinking they have a migraine. They think they have a sinus infection. They think they have vertigo. They think they have an earache, but their hearing's normal. There's not any clear physical exam findings that a primary care doctor is going to look at you - if you have dizziness or a headache - that's going to tell them what you got. It's all in their head, literally. So you have to know history of what to look for if you have a migraine, and most people don't.
Eugene: People misdiagnose all the time because they think they got a migraine but it's not, but it is?
Dr. Abrams: There's the classic Z-Pak sinus infection. Patient goes in, you know urgent care, they get a Z-Pak for sinusitis they never had because they never had any color drainage. But they did have drainage, they have pressure, they did have eye pain. They had teeth pain. It's a great Halloween costume for a sinus infection, a migraine is.
Eugene: Okay, now you've recently researched a unique method, right? Tell me about this method in treating migraines.
Dr. Abrams: There's nothing like a pandemic to create urgency, right?
Eugene: That's right. Mother necessity right there.
Dr. Abrams: Right, I'm telling you. I had them coming in by the truckloads, misdiagnosed with sinusitis, vertigo and ear pain. And I got so frustrated, I wound up taking the headache course the migraine doctors take. I'm not a migraine doctor, but I am now because I borrowed one of their techniques. They do a technique in the nose where they drip lidocaine for 10 minutes that takes away a migraine. The problem is they can't do it because there's not too many people that do it and the insurance company keeps them from doing it because it's a special thing, it requires a lot of prior authorization and failure of other meds. So they just don't get it but if they work their diagnostic, but it's in the nose.
Guess what? I'm a nose doctor. They're cooking in our kitchen. I can actually numb up your nose, take one of my scopes, and put a little piece of cotton with lidocaine in your nose in the right place right where the nerves are and it'll basically turn off the on button. And in 10 minutes, whatever they came in for - they know they had a migraine - now they do because it works. And it works so often, it's like 97% of the time. If you do the algorithm I do with blocks here and in the neck if I need to, these patients leave without a headache or dizziness or whatever they came in with so they know what they got now. It's the cheat code.
Eugene: Wow, so people are now being able to go ahead and get the relief that they was trying to get?
Dr. Abrams: Yeah, because they were, you know, given an antibiotic for a migraine.
Eugene: Right, okay, where can people get more information? This is exciting stuff, where can they find you to get this treatment?
Dr. Abrams: This is a lot because I'm 57 years old. I haven't done a research project in 25 years, but this was that important that I actually wrote it up at our academy two weeks ago. So hopefully otolaryngologists around the country will start getting some traction on doing this. In fact Dennis Quaid's show Viewpoint from PBS came down and shot me back in August. And so that should be on this quarter so you can learn about migraine you can learn how migraines really are because there's a nice six-minute documentary on that. But really, get on the CEENTA website. We should soon be able to upload a lot of this information so patients can use our practice as a resource to learn about what migraines are, what they can do to help themselves in the meantime, and one of our providers that can help figure them out.
Eugene: This is absolutely fascinating, Mark. Thank you very much for being here.
Dr. Abrams: Thanks.
Eugene: No doubt indeed. Thank you.
