Photo By Emily Klinkenborg | Lt. Col. Owen Johnson, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Evans Army Community...... read more read more
Migraines can be debilitating. The excruciating pain keeps people home from work and indoors on vacations, but one doctor at Evans Army Community Hospital (EACH) has found a way to rid patients of their migraines. Lt. Col. Owen Johnson, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at EACH, has successfully eliminated migraines for approximately three dozen patients.
Johnson performed his first migraine surgery in 2016 while assigned to William Beaumont Army Medical Center (WBAMC) at Fort Bliss, Texas. Each migraine surgery since has been a success.
“People think of Botox and breast implants, but the full breadth of plastic surgery is really all over the body,” said Johnson. “It doesn’t really matter what material you’re working with or where. It’s a specialty of principles, and it’s a specialty of problem solving.”
Johnson has a history of finding innovative ways to improve his patients’ quality of life and is well-known for growing an ear inside a Soldier’s arm at WBAMC in 2018.
Pvt. Shamika Burrage lost her left ear during a vehicle accident and contemplated having a prosthetic ear, but Johnson offered her a better option. Johnson reconstructed an ear with the cartilage harvested from Burrage’s ribs and continued to grow the ear by placing it under the skin of her forearm.
This total ear reconstruction was the first of its kind to be achieved by an Army surgeon and Johnson continued to lead the way for the Army medical field by accomplishing successful migraine surgeries for his patients.
Johnson earned his bachelor’s degree at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, through an Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps scholarship and continued his education at the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville, Virginia, for medical school.
After completing medical school, Johnson attended a six-year general surgery program at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) in Washington, D.C., where he became certified as a general surgeon.
Initially, Johnson had plans to become a heart surgeon, like most of his mentors at UVA, but decided to redirect his focus while in the general surgery program after observing WRAMC plastic surgeons treat Soldiers who were injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The people who were the busiest and had the craziest cases were the plastic surgeons,” said Johnson. “So when I saw all this going on — the creative problem solving, the thinking — you almost feel like there is nothing we can’t do.”
Johnson served as chief of the General Surgery Clinic at Womack Army Medical Center in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for his first active-duty assignment, and later returned to his alma mater at Johns Hopkins University for a three-year plastic surgery training program.
He decided to stay an extra year at Johns Hopkins University for a Craniomaxillofacial and Head and Neck Microsurgery Fellowship and conducted procedures on the face, head and neck that ranged from minor plastic surgery to intense reconstruction.
During the fellowship, Johnson learned about a series of patients who had noticed a decrease in their migraines after receiving cosmetic surgery.
According to Johnson, a plastic surgeon from Cleveland, Ohio, had performed brow lifts for the sole purpose of cosmetic surgery due to facial aging, but the results proved to offer much more than that. The brow lifts reduced the migraines that some of the patients had experienced.
Johnson noticed the same results in other forms of plastic surgery around the face, head and neck area.
“(Plastic surgeons) think there are a subset of migraines that are triggered by a peripheral nerve source and we think there are four major types,” said Johnson.
Johnson noted four different areas in which a pinched nerve could cause migraines: in the nose, around the forehead, near the temple regions on each side of the head, and at the base of the skull where the head meets the neck.
“The compression themselves leads to nerve irritation like a carpel tunnel syndrome and that nerve irritation can sometimes be the trigger for what we call migraine headaches,” said Johnson.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a compression of the median nerve — a major nerve in the wrist — that can cause tingling and numbness in the hand and arm. The chronic pressure on that nerve leads to chronic pain or weakness, which can be resolved by relieving the pressure on that nerve through surgery.
Johnson explained that if pinched nerves in the wrist could produce pain and weakness, then it was possible for pinched nerves in other areas of the body to have the same affect.
After his first migraine surgery in 2016 at Fort Bliss, Texas, Johnson went on to perform another two migraine surgeries in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, for deployed service members. It was the first time any surgery of that caliber was conducted in theater.
“We did the inspections of the (operating room) and realized that it was safe,” said Johnson. “It had all the same parameters that you would look for at an accredited place in the United States.”
The combat support hospital was equipped with an MRI machine and had neurologists and a primary care provider on staff who showed interest in migraines. Johnson decided to put together a team to handle debilitating migraine cases.
While most of the patients Johnson saw in Kuwait had suffered noncombat-related trauma in the hands or the face, these two cases met the qualifications to have migraine relief surgery and Johnson was able to perform them in theater.
Normally, Soldiers would have been sent back to the U.S. for care, but Johnson was determined to keep them in the fight.
Johnson said he takes pride in getting to know his patients as a person first so that he can appropriately assess their case.
“I had migraines for as long as I can remember,” said Marion Bomberry, a former migraine patient. “I was maybe 7 the first time it happened.”
Bomberry explained that her migraines made it difficult to see and often referred to her blurry vision as a visual aura resembling prisms. She also became sensitive to light and the pain from her migraines would often induce vomiting.
“I wasn’t even going to (Dr. Johnson) because of migraines. I was talking to him about something totally different and it just happened to come up,” said Bomberry. “We both came from Fort Bliss. He asked me how I liked (Colorado) and I told him well, I like it other than my migraines really kicked up.”
After hearing this, Johnson explained to Bomberry what could be the cause of her migraines and ordered a Computed Tomography (CT) scan to prove his prediction.
“He nailed it right on the head because he was like, get a CT done of your face, this is what I think we’re going to find and that’s exactly what we found,” said Bomberry.
Bomberry’s CT scan showed a deviated septum to the right and a septal spur that was attached to a nerve on the left side of her nose.
“The nasal septum is a wall of cartilage that goes right down the middle of the nose that divides the left and the right side,” said Johnson. “If it’s bent or curved, people will have difficulty breathing, but we also noticed, anecdotally, that they also have certain types of headaches and that when you did the septoplasty, their headaches went away.”
Johnson performed the migraine surgery on Bomberry in early September, and after having experienced migraines since she was 7, she says she has been completely migraine free since the procedure.
“I was always told there is nothing you can do about it. Having doctors tell you ‘I don’t know’ for so long — I didn’t even think anybody would ever have an answer,” said Bomberry. “Feeling like I’ll never know what a migraine is like ever again is just the best.”
Another migraine patient, who goes by the name Jo, shared a similar history with migraines.
“He noticed that I had the long history of migraines, and I had pretty much tried every treatment there was,” said Jo. “I typically had 15 headaches a month and it was very difficult to live with that.”
In addition to ordering a CT scan of Jo’s face, Johnson also administered a nerve block — a long-acting numbing agent called Exparel — near her eyebrow where he suspected nerve impingement.
The numbing agent was used to stop the nerve from signaling, so if Jo experienced less migraines, then it would indicate that the nerve was in fact pinched and causing the migraines to occur.
“I noticed that I had less headaches for about three weeks,” said Jo. “I know it wouldn’t be fit for everyone, but if you can get some testing – if you do have this kind of a nerve impingement that could be causing your headaches, then this type of surgery may really help you.”
Johnson released the pinched nerve in Jo’s eyebrow this month and will complete her migraine surgery by performing a septoplasty on her nose later.
While people usually do not look forward to having surgeries, Jo says she is looking forward to hers.
“I am fortunate that I get to benefit from (Dr. Johnson’s) talent and that this was made possible,” said Jo. “I’m very hopeful that it’s going to make a very large difference in my life and the quality of my life.”
| Date Taken: | 11.08.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 11.09.2020 12:19 |
| Story ID: | 382647 |
| Location: | FORT CARSON, COLORADO, US |
| Web Views: | 368 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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