Doctors use Botox to weaken and paralyze specific muscles temporarily. Consider getting small doses of the drug to reduce signs of aging like wrinkles. Collaborating with an experienced physician at Houston Skin Shop medSpa will ensure the safe and effective use of Botox to treat your cosmetic concerns.
What is Botox?
Clostridium botulinum is a bacterium that produces botulinum toxin. Scientists use this toxin to make a protein called botox. Botox is risky since the toxin can have negative health impacts, especially when delivered in high doses. Your doctor will only administer small doses of the drug to fix your cosmetic and medical uses.
The risk and benefits of using Botox
Botulinum bacteria exist in various natural settings, including mammalian intestinal tracts, forests, soils, and lakes. This bacteria is harmless. However, spores transformation due to increased cell population stimulates the production of Botulinum toxin, the deadly neurotoxin responsible for botulism.
Although Botulinum toxin is extremely dangerous, therapeutic uses of Botox are safe and cause few side effects. Your doctor will only use small doses of Botulinum toxin to temporarily paralyze your muscles or improve various muscle or nerve disorders.
How Botox works
Neurotoxins like Botox have a specific mechanism targeting the nervous system. Your doctor will administer this toxin to disrupt nerve function, specifically the signaling processes that cause muscle contraction. The result of Botox delivery into your skin is temporary muscle paralysis.
Mechanism of muscle contraction
Your nerves release acetylcholine at the point where nerve endings and muscle cells meet. The attachment of this chemical messenger to muscle cell receptors stimulates muscle contraction and shortening. Botox prevents the release of acetylcholine, causing muscles to become less stiff.
Cosmetic uses of Botox
Botox injections are among the most common cosmetic procedures that patients undergo. Your doctor will recommend the treatment to fix the following facial concerns:
- Frown lines, glabellar lines, and elevens are wrinkles between the eyebrows.
- Crow’s feet: Wrinkles around the eyes
- Wrinkles at the corners of the mouth
- Horizontal creases in the forehead
The effects of Botox on your facial concerns are temporary, lasting 3–12 months.
Medical uses of Botox
Your doctor may recommend botox injections to address your neuromuscular concerns. For example, you may benefit from Botox injections if you are experiencing the following:
- Upper limb spasticity: only for patients above two years
- Crossed eyes, or strabismus: You should be above 12 to receive botox for this condition.
- Hyperhidrosis: Excess underarm sweating
- Persistent migraines
- Overactive bladder
- Eyelid spasms, or blepharospasm, due to dystonia
What to expect during the Botox procedure
Your doctor will dilute botulinum toxin in saline before injecting it into neuromuscular tissue. You will feel the effects of the injection after about 24 hours. It may take up to five days before you experience the full effects of the injections. Botox treatments offer temporary results. You may need additional injections after three or twelve months, depending on your initial treatment.
Pregnant and breastfeeding mothers are not ideal candidates for Botox. Contact Skin Shop medSpa to find out other contraindications of Botox and determine your candidacy for the treatment to fix your cosmetic and medical cncerns.
