Botox, the most popular cosmetic procedure in the world, is a neurotoxin that is injected into your muscles to temporarily paralyze them. It is used to treat wrinkles, by relaxing the muscles under your skin and smoothing out the overlying skin. The best candidates for Botox are those with forehead lines and wrinkles, who are looking for a temporary fix until something more permanent can be done
Botox is best used on “dynamic” wrinkles, which are formed by repetitive facial expressions, like frowning or squinting. It can also be used on crow’s feet around the eyes and fine lines/wrinkles on the neck.
Botox For Wrinkles In Forehead
While aging doesn’t start exactly the same for all of us, we can pretty much bet on eventually developing lines, wrinkles, and folds. One day you might look in mirror and realize they’ve gotten to a point that is distracting and you’d like to do something about them. If you’re looking for Botox in Minnetonka, call Wayzata Cosmetic Surgery in Wayzata, MN to ask about how this game-changing injectable can help you turn back the hands of time on your appearance.
What Causes Wrinkles?
When you think about the appearance of wrinkles, you might just think that it’s the passage of time that makes lines appear on your face. It’s more than that. A few things are at play when your skin develops wrinkles.
COLLAGEN PRODUCTION
The protein collagen can best be described as the glue that holds our skin cells and layers together, making everything look and feel tight, smooth and bright. It’s a fibrous protein that makes the middle layer of our skin, or the dermis, a solid foundation for the outer layer, or epidermis. When we’re young, we have a strong and solid scaffold on which our cells can regenerate and remain tightly packed together.
Collagen works hand in hand with elastin and hyaluronic acid. Elastin, as you can imagine, keeps our skin flexible or elastic. This allows it to snap back into place after being moved, stretched, and pulled. Hyaluronic acid attracts moisture to our skin and keeps us looking supple and dewy. As we age, the production of all three declines.
The Decline in Production
One of the biggest contributors to wrinkles and lines is the drop in collagen production. This drop causes weaknesses in the scaffolding just under the surface of our skin. Without elastin keeping our skin bouncing back and the strong structure of collagen, the surface of our skin drops to form lines, wrinkles, and folds.
MOVEMENT
Some lines and wrinkles are caused by repetitive motion. These are referred to as dynamic wrinkles because they’re not just a result of lost collagen and gravity. We make the same expressions day in and day out our entire lives. As we do, we use the same set of muscles, and they make the same movements each time. These expressions include:
Frowning
Raising eyebrows
Squinting
Furrowing eyebrows
Smiling
Over time, the skin on top of these muscles will begin to form lines, showing a map of the expression. Eventually, these lines can become so deeply etched it can give the appearance we’re still making the expression. For instance, the frown lines between the eyebrows become etched and can make people look angry or upset when they aren’t. This can age someone’s appearance and bring their whole aesthetic down. Other areas where dynamic wrinkles appear include the:
Forehead
Corners of the eyes
Side of the nose
Around the mouth
Neck banding
Botox
If you haven’t heard of Botox, let us introduce you to the number one requested and physician performed cosmetic treatment in the world. There’s a reason it’s so popular—it’s quick, easy, and effective. Botox is made from a solution of botulinum toxin type A, a purified and natural protein. It belongs to a class of injectables called neuromodulators, so-called because they can disrupt a nerve’s signal from reaching a muscle.
When the impulse to move is blocked, the muscle relaxes. While we know this can provide great cosmetic results, Botox has a fairly long history.
Allergan purchased the rights to the discovery, and it was approved by the FDA in 1987 for the treatment of uncontrolled eye spasms and crossed eyes. Over the next decade, it would be used to help uncontrolled muscle spasms in the neck and shoulder and to reduce the tremors and stiffness that can occur after a stroke.
COSMETIC APPLICATION
In the 1990’s, the medical community started to notice how Botox could target certain muscles that were responsible for deeply etched lines on the face. In 2002, the FDA approved its use for the temporary relaxing of the muscles that cause frown lines, forehead wrinkles and crow’s feet.
There are plenty of off-label uses for Botox. Off-label refers to treatments for which the drug has not been approved by the FDA but that the medical community has agreed are safe and effective.
How Does Botox Work to Reduce the Appearance of Wrinkles?
When your doctor injects certain muscles that are causing the movement that causes wrinkles, the muscle relaxes. When the muscle relaxes, the skin on the surface is given a chance to smooth out and the wrinkles diminish or fade.
WHAT TO EXPECT
You and your doctor will decide if this is the right treatment to address your areas of concern. If it is, there’s no preparation for you to do. This is a minimally invasive treatment that requires no downtime and no prep.
Your Appointment
To start your appointment, your doctor will sterilize the skin at the injection sites. They may apply a topical anesthetic to make sure you’re comfortable, though many clients don’t require it and experience no discomfort.
A series of strategic and small injections will be made to manipulate the muscles to achieve your goals. When your session is over, you’re done. There’s no downtime. Your doctor may have specific aftercare instructions for you just to maximize the results.
How Long Does Botox Last in the Forehead?
You’ll see results in about 1-2 days as your muscles slowly relax and the skin begins to smooth, with full results at 7-10 days. When your forehead wrinkles have totally relaxed, you can expect to see results for about 3-4 months. This is the same amount of time other treated areas will experience results too.
Work with your doctor to determine the right follow-up schedule for you so you can experience consistent results. The longer you keep those muscles relaxed, the better the appearance of those lines will be. You also won’t be making those lines any deeper while you’re experiencing the effects of Botox.
Where Can Botox Be Used?
There are many on and off-label uses for Botox. You can receive treatment for lines and wrinkles like:
Frown lines
Forehead wrinkles
Crow’s feet
Bunny lines on the side of the nose
Vertical lines around the mouth
As you’re looking for Botox, there are more uses than just dynamic wrinkles. Botox continues to gain popularity as its versatility grows.
EYEBROW LIFT
This is a natural progression of just treating forehead and frown lines. When the muscles that pull parts of your eyebrows down are treated, they relax. This allows the muscles that pull the arch and tail up to compensate. This leaves clients with the enviable arches they’ve always wanted.
Some people call this the “non-surgical eye lift” because it can counteract drooping eyebrows and open a client’s expression and face up, making them look younger, happier and more awake.
GUMMY SMILE
Many people aren’t happy with the amount of gums they show when they smile. If you look at pictures of yourself and wish you showed only teeth, Botox can help. It works to relax the muscles that are over-pulling your lips, revealing your gums. When your doctor injects these muscles, you can still smile, but you only reveal as much as you want.
HYPERHIDROSIS
Wrinkles and lines aside, if you suffer from excessive underarm sweating, Botox has been approved for the treatment of this condition. The hallmark of this condition is having constant dampness under your arms, and people who suffer from this sweat almost every waking hour of the day. It gets so bad, patients will develop social anxiety and wear only dark and loose clothing in an attempt to hide sweat.
When Botox is injected, it blocks the signal from the nerve to the sweat gland. When the signal is blocked, the sweat gland doesn’t get the message to produce sweat. This is a game-changer for people with this condition, and a life-changing treatment.
Other Anti-Aging Injectables
We’ve talked about dynamic wrinkles and how Botox can address them. But what about the other lines, wrinkles, and folds toward the bottom of the face? There are great solutions to help with the appearance of these lines, too, and the most popular are dermal fillers.
DERMAL FILLERS
This is another family of injectables designed to address moderate to severe lines, wrinkles, and folds. Most fillers are made of a synthetic form of hyaluronic acid, though there are a few exceptions. The hyaluronic acid is suspended in a smooth and pliable gel so it gets natural results.
There are many different types of fillers on the market so only your doctor can determine which is right for your areas of concern. Fillers can be used to address:
Lines, folds and wrinkles
Areas of lost volume
Thinning lips
Asymmetry in features
Lines, Wrinkles, and Folds
This is one treatment that provides instant gratification. You walk in with deep lines and folds and can walk out looking years younger. These fillers provide instant volume to areas, and because many other them are made from hyaluronic acid, they actually attract moisture to the skin, providing very natural results.
These dermal fillers can be used on:
Nasolabial folds
Marionette lines
Chin wrinkles
Vertical lines around the mouth
Crow’s feet
Lip Enhancement
Some fillers are created to add subtle volume and give shape to thinning lips. Whether you’ve never had the plump lips you’ve dreamed of or you’ve lost volume over time, dermal fillers can provide a natural-looking but transformative result. Fillers can also be used to correct downturned corners of the mouth. With this small adjustment, the appearance is lighter and more positive.
Lost Volume
When we age, the fat distribution on our faces change. What used to provide us with a full and proportionate face can slip, causing areas of lost volume in our temporal, cheek and cheekbone areas. If you’ve lost prominent features, certain fillers can help you regain the youthful contours you’ve lost.
These fillers can also help with the lost volume on the back of the hands.
Reasons not to get botox
Cosmetic injectables used to be just for movie stars, but now they have gone decidedly mainstream. Considering a little jab? Read this list first.
- It makes you look older
Botox and fillers give you a recognisable look: smooth forehead ala Kylie and Nic; trout pout ala Meg Ryan and Courtney Love. All these women are well past their fortieth birthdays. If you look like them and you’re only 32, people will peg you as a person much older.
- It’s not fair to other women
I have a colleague who confided in me that she’s had work done, but denies it to everyone else. When a mutual friend expressed amazement that she hasn’t any smile lines around her eyes, she smiled serenely and thanked her good genes, making my friend feel like crap. Not fair.
- It costs a lot of money
Thousands of dollars a year to maintain it! Increasing every year as you get older! Think about what else you could do with that money. Go to Scotland every year for Hogmanay. Do a part-time university course in fifteenth-century manuscript history. Hire a personal trainer. No, hire a native French speaker to teach you French immersion style. In Paris.
- It gives that money to people who don’t deserve it
The companies and practitioners who sell you your injectibles want you to hate your smile lines. If you hate them, you’ll part with your money. So they manufacture self-hatred, through using horrid phrases like “crows feet” and “marionette lines”. In a relationship, if somebody undermined your self esteem to get your money, we’d call that abuse.
- It makes your face look weird
Injectibles don’t make you look younger, they make you look smoother and puffier (a kind of pseudo-youth). A little too much or a little in the wrong place, and you’ll be too smooth or too puffy and it will look weird. Even celebrities occasionally have dodgy work done, and they have heaps of money and the best practitioers available: do you really think you can avoid it?
- It makes you undersell yourself
You are more than your appearance. If you really think all you have to offer the world is a smooth face, then you are mistaken. Kindness, intelligence, warmth, humour, wisdom, patience, forgiveness, and so on and so on. Nobody’s value is limited to a smooth forehead.
- It’s all going to go eventually
Botox can’t stop you getting old. Eventually, it will happen and no injectible on earth will help. By then, you’ll be struggling against a life-long panicky conviction that wrinkles must be eradicated. This is not what they call ageing gracefully.
- Nobody can botox your arse
No matter how smooth your face remains, your body will eventually reveal the truth about your age. Skin grows softer and sits differently. There isn’t a shot for that, so you’re going to be limited to turtle-necks and maxi-skirts (which isn’t much fun in an Australian summer), or you going to have to present the world with collar and cuffs that don’t match.
- It’s the thin edge of a wedge
Botox and fillers are gateway drugs. You think it’s only a little bit of tinkering, but when it’s no longer enough, suddenly surgical eyelifts and neck tightening start to sound viable.
- There are plenty of people who are beautiful without it
It’s hard to find celebs who haven’t had work done, but go google pics of Emma Thompson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Cate Blanchett, Paulina Porozkova, or Isabella Rosselini. Granted, they were all beautiful women to start with, but just go look at them and see what a real ageing face looks like. It’s not all bad, people.