A New Use For Botox Focuses On How You Feel Instead Of How You Look

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – It's a new use for Botox and it's not about looking younger. This time its geared toward feeling better.

It started out for wrinkles, but now Botox is used to treat everything from migraines to excessive sweating. New research from London, says it can also relieve certain kinds of knee pain that often strikes active people.

Doctor Michelle Earby jogs every day, but splintering pain around her knee nearly sidelined her passion for the pavement.

"It was really severe stabbing pain in my knee that I couldn't run through," said Dr. Michelle Earby, explaining the discomfort that kept her from her daily jogs

Earby was diagnosed with lateral patellofemoral overload syndrome or L.P.O.S, a common injury impacting the muscle around the knee and thigh. One in eight runners have it.

"For many of those patients it just would have been physiotherapy, more physiotherapy and even more physiotherapy. Surgical options were extremely limited," said David Urquhart, a physical therapist,

Physical therapy is called physio-therapy in London where they tested Botox to relieve knee pain.

Botox is often used to relieve wrinkles but researchers say it also relaxes injured muscles associated with L.P.O.S.

Earby was one of 45 patients in the British study to receive a Botox shot in the front hip muscle, which runners tend to overuse.

"I was relatively pain free and was able to build up my running and have actually managed to do a marathon since then with no pain," Earby stated.

Researchers found just a single small injection, along with continued physical therapy, had a 69 percent success rate.

Earby has remained pain free since her injection two years ago.

Botox to treat knee pain is still being researched. Doctors say it will probably only work for issues related to muscles. While not specifically approved by the FDA, it can be used "off label" for joint pain caused by osteoarthritis. That's where doctors say the cartilage is damaged, but there are different kinds of injections that can be helpful.