Jennifer Mathews: More than 4.5 million Americans suffer from chronic daily headaches.
Stephen Silberstein: Can you imagine what it's like to have a headache every day of your life, to never wake up pain-free?
Jennifer Mathews: Martha Fritz has headaches on most days of the month, every month. Those daily headaches often turn into migraines.
Martha Fritz: I could honestly tell you that it would be a 10 out of 10 on the pain scale.
Jennifer Mathews: Daily pain kept Martha from work and from spending time with her mother.
Martha Fritz: I was to the point I was desperate. I tried anything and everything.
Jennifer Mathews: Needing relief, Martha enrolled in a clinical trial on Botox, a poison that's commonly used to reduce wrinkles in the face. Some patients got Botox while others were injected with a saline solution.
Stephen Silberstein: We found that in all the patients, headache frequency went down, but in the patients who got botulinum toxin type A, many more of them responded compared to simply getting the saline injections.
Jennifer Mathews: After three months, nearly 60% of patients who received Botox had their headaches cut in half.
Stephen Silberstein: Botulinum toxin actually changes the properties of the nerves, so they don't become as active and sensitive, and it cuts down migraines.
Jennifer Mathews: Botox worked for Martha. As long as she gets her shots, she remains virtually headache-free.
Martha Fritz: I don't miss work as much. I don't miss my son's baseball games, so Botox has made a dramatic difference in my life.
Jennifer Mathews: Doctors say the FDA could approve the use of Botox for headaches within three years. This is Jennifer Mathews reporting.
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