The thought of scheduling a Botox treatment usually comes with a few questions. What is Botox? Is Botox safe? Can Botox help with my condition? Is Botox in Phoenix affordable? Our Botox Resource Center is a reliable source of information on both the general questions and rare concerns you may have about Botox—whether you’re a patient of ours or not.
We will begin by addressing the basics of Botox before diving deeper into its various uses, discussing how it’s become one of the most popular cosmetic services on the market today.
Did you know? Botox is actually a trade name and that all these types of products are technically called ‘neuromodulators’. For the purpose of this resource center, we will use the term ‘Botox’ when referring to all types of neuromodulators.
What Is Botox?
Botox (medically known as Botulinum toxin) is an organism produced from the bacterium Clostridium botulin, which, in its natural environment, is extremely inactive and non-toxic. Once the organism goes through a protein purification process, it then creates the highly purified protein we know as Botox to treat cosmetic and medical conditions—with some slight differences in between product lines.
Here at Paradise Medspa, we offer three of the top Botox products in today’s market:
- Botox Cosmetic
- Xeomin
- Dysport
Depending on the severity of your problem area and budget, you should speak with a physician at Paradise Medspa to find out which product will work best for you.
To view more information on the types of Botox Paradise Medspa offers, along with before & after photos, visit our Botox service page.
How Does Botox Work?
Botox has proven to help with more issues than just preventing and diminishing wrinkles. It can help with excessive sweating, chronic migraines, and other medical conditions.
Although the use of Botox differs between patients, the process of how Botox works for each condition is essentially the same. When you come in for a Botox treatment, we begin the treatment by injecting a small dose of Botox into the targeted area. Botox gets to work by blocking the transfer of neurotransmitters (a chemical substance that causes muscle contraction) sent from your nerves to your muscles.
How does blocking neurotransmitters produce the incredible results triggered by Botox? The signs of premature aging—such as fine lines and deep wrinkles—are a result of muscle contraction. Naturally, muscle contraction starts with your nerve endings which release neurotransmitters to your muscle receptors and give the muscle instruction to contract. Botox “blocks” neurotransmitters by preventing nerve endings from releasing the chemical substance, thus temporarily paralyzing the connected muscle cells and stops them from contracting.
Paralyzing underlying muscles is also used as a medical method to help treat certain muscular conditions. In fact, the uses of Botox for medical conditions far out numbers the uses for cosmetic!
Uses for Botox
It’s not just for wrinkles anymore! As we have previously mentioned, the uses for Botox aren’t limited to reducing the signs of premature aging. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved the treatment of Botox to help with an array of conditions—some of which may surprise you!
As you read further, remember to take what you learn from this resource page to your physician for a proper diagnosis. Based on the severity of your condition, your expected results, and budget, your physician will choose the right treatment option based on your personal needs.
However, always consider Botox as an option! Take a look at all of the cosmetic and medical conditions in which Botox can be applied for exceptional relief.
Botox for Cosmetic Use
We all have those small areas of imperfections we just can’t seems to live with, and the face isn’t exactly the easiest place to hide these not so flattering areas. The great news is Botox as a cosmetic solution involves no downtime or recovery, and can be done in as little as 10 minutes!
Cosmetic uses for Botox are:
- Forehead furrows (and frown lines)
- Crow’s feet
Forehead furrows
Have you ever been confused or taken aback as to why someone asked if you were feeling okay, or if you were feeling a bit frustrated? Before you try blaming someone or something that may (or may not) be bothering you, you should know that questions like the ones above are commonly asked due to the development of forehead furrows.
Forehead furrows are the horizontal folds that stretch across your forehead, causing you to appear mad or sad (even when your face is resting). These can get in the way of a pleasing appearance. Overtime, the repeated action of tissue gathering when showing certain facial expressions, such as squinting and frowning, will form folds above and between the eyebrows.
Forehead furrows also include frown lines, which are the smaller fine lines that develop between the eyebrows.
Crow’s feet
Crow’s feet (also known as laugh lines) are the wrinkles that form on the outside corner of your eyes. Did you know that these unwanted wrinkles can begin developing as early as your mid-twenties? And to make matters slightly worse, if you don’t take good care of your skin and do participate in bad habits that are known to cause premature aging, crow’s feet can develop even earlier.
Crow’s feet are caused by your skin losing its elasticity, which you can’t help but lose naturally as a part of aging. Elasticity is why our skin has the ability to return to its normal state after being stretched.
Botox for Medical Use
If you are seeking Botox as a treatment option for a specific medical condition, we have information for that too. Here you will find additional information that you could potentially ask your doctor about during your next office visit.
Botox can help with the following medical conditions:
- Chronic migraines
- Muscle spasms
- Overactive bladder
- Eye twitching
- Excessive sweating
Chronic migraines
An intense pulsing headache, nausea, and heightened sensitivity to light and sound are just a few signs of a chronic migraine—we’re not talking about your typical headache. What characterizes your migraine as chronic? You might think it’s the severity of your migraine, but that’s not true as it’s more about how often your migraines occur. People with chronic migraines experience these unbearable headaches at least 15 days a month for long periods of time, while an occasional migraine may happen a couple times a month or a few times every year for a short period of time.
Botox is used to treat chronic migraines when other treatment options stood ineffective, or the patient experiences extreme side effects from their current medication. It helps alleviate pain by reducing the muscle tension created by migraines, which also lessens the stress put on the nervous system. This process not only reduces the severity of your migraines, but studies have also shown an overall decrease in the occurrence of chronic migraines.
Botox is considered a safe and effective option for preventing headaches in adults to help manage migraines and improve the life of people who may have been long time sufferers.
Muscle spasms
Muscles spasms are generally harmless, but that doesn’t mean you should learn to live with them. A spasm occurs when a muscle is tired from being overworked or is in the same position for a long length of time. What happens internally is your muscle runs out of fluid and reacts with a strong contraction. This extremely uncomfortable pain and stiffness in your muscle is also commonly known as a Charley horse (which is just another name for a muscle spasm).
There are a variety of factors that determine the symptoms and severity of your muscle spasm, such as the muscle involved, the environment, and how active you are.
A few causes of muscle spasms include:
- Dehydration
- Strenuous exercise
- Atherosclerosis
- Mineral depletion (low amounts of potassium)
- Diseases linked to the nervous system
Botox provides relief to patients that suffer from frequent muscles spasm by injecting its formula directly to the source of muscle, which temporarily prevents your muscles to contracting and relieves the spasm.
Overactive bladder (OAB)
Overactive bladder is the sudden urge to urinate in which you have no control over. Living with an overactive bladder proves to be far more than just an inconvenience. The constant need to urinate can be an extreme burden on people’s social and personal life, causing mental distress and affecting their ability to travel, therefore greatly decreasing their quality of life. Finding an effective solution for this condition is essential, and Botox might be the answer.
As you’ve learned, Botox helps to weaken muscles—this includes muscles of the bladder. Relaxing the muscles in your bladder can stop them from contracting, thus reducing the chances for urine leakage and frequent runs to the bathroom.
Don’t jump to conclusions too quickly. Urinating often is also totally normal, especially if you drink a lot of fluids.
OAB is typically the case if urinating frequently is in conjunction with the following symptoms:
- Recurrent accidents
- Nocturia (persistently waking up to urinate at night)
- Urgent urination (sudden urges to urinate)
- Urinary incontinence (loss of bladder control)
Eye twitching (Blepharospasm)
Eye twitching is having no control over the tight closure of the eyelids, which results in involuntary blinking and spasms of the eyelids. The development of eye twitching generally comes with no warnings, only to gradually worsen overtime. Consequently, what may start out as developing a sensitivity to light can eventually lead to frequent blinking or facial spasms. Eye twitching could also depend on the emotional state of the person, like during moments they feel overly stressed or under pressure.
Botox, when performed by an ophthalmologist (an eye and visual system specialist), relaxes and weakens the muscles in the eye to prevent them from twitching. This treatment option has been proven to work on both teenagers and adults.
Excessive Sweating (Hyperhidrosis)
Sweating is a sign that your body is working to cool itself down. The rate at which you sweat increases during times where you experience hot temperatures or exert a lot energy. Sweating is not usually a sign of trouble if triggered, whereas excessive sweating happens during unusual conditions, such as cooler temperatures or moments you are inactive, like sitting at your desk or sleeping.
Sweating excessively without a reason may seem harmless, but it has devastating effects on a person’s social and work life. People tend to adapt their lifestyle to their excessive sweating, avoiding social gatherings and limiting their clothing selection to certain colors and fabrics. Excessive sweating can also signal infection, thyroid problems, fever, obesity, diabetes, and other serious medical problems.
Botox is a proven treatment method for excessive underarm sweating if other medicines used on the skin have failed. Botox is injected into the targeted area in a grid-like pattern (approximately every 1 to 2 centimeters apart). The amount of Botox a patient receives is based on the physician’s assessment of the area. Botox blocks the nerves that stimulate your sweat glands, ultimately reducing the amount you sweat. It will take a few treatments before you notice the full effects of Botox and experience drier underarms, so be patient and wait for results!
(It is not known whether Botox is safe or effective for heavy sweating anywhere other than your armpits.)
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We are going to continue adding to The Botox Resource Center as we address patients’ questions and concerns about Botox. Check back for more talk about Botox.
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