KSHB 41: Children's Mercy uses new device to help with headaches

By Jordan Betts

Children's Mercy's Headache Treatment Center sees more than 1,200 patients each year. One of those patients is 16-year-old Sydney Miller.

"I've been having headaches for about four years, almost five years soon," Miller said.

She is in pain every single day.

Medication for the teen hasn't worked, and acupuncture only gives her so much relief.

"It's almost as if you got hit in the head really hard and quick with a bat or something," Miller described.

Doctors are working to find an easier, quicker and less invasive way to help patients that suffer from headaches and migraines.

At Children's Mercy, they are working with a new machine that is called GammaCore.

Doctors at the hospital said the new device is not curing the headache entirely, but is helping.

"If they have a nine out of ten pain, it could go down to a six or five or four. I haven't seen it go down to a complete zero out of 10, but they may have a zero out of 10 when they go home and I just don't capture that," Dr. Esparham said.

Read the full story via KSHB

Learn more about the Headache Treatment Center at Children's Mercy