Headaches
Pain
The excruciating pain caused by chronic facial pain disorders can have a considerable impact on quality of life for patients and their families. However, a lack of awareness and research funding means there are very few studies which have explored long-term treatment options. Current treatments offer little control over pain and often come with considerable side effects.
My fellowship offers an untapped opportunity to create a truly significant and tangible outcome for patients suffering from facial pain, headaches, and other pain conditions.Dr Anna Andreou
A potential treatment option is ‘botulinum toxin A’ injections, commonly known as Botox. Botox has significant pain preventive actions; however, especially for the region of the face, such actions are curtailed by its paralytic side effects.
Over the past four years, along with her collaborators at the University of Sheffield and Neuresta (a University of Sheffield spin-out company), Dr Anna Andreou from King's College London has been working with a new botox-like molecule called BITOX, which lacks paralytic effects.
In the lab Dr Andreou will first examine how effective BITOX is for preventing pain, and how long its effects last, by looking specifically at silencing pain-specific neurons in the brain. She will then use these findings to explore how safe and effective BITOX is for patients suffering with facial pain, recruited via the Guy’s and St Thomas’ Headache Centre.
“There is a huge unmet need for new treatments,” says Dr Andreou. “My fellowship offers an untapped opportunity to create a truly significant and tangible outcome for patients suffering from facial pain, headaches, and other pain conditions.”
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