Everything You Need to Know About Botulinum Toxin Injections for Facial Wrinkles
3 min readIn the cosmetic world, Botulinum Toxin (Botox) Injection has been used to smoothen out some of your facial wrinkles for years. Botox injection patterns are used to weaken and paralyze the muscle on your face, reducing some of your facial wrinkles, and could even be used for the treatment of some medical conditions. Here is everything you need to know about Botulinum Toxin Injections for facial wrinkles and how much it could cost you.
What is Botox?
Botox is a neurotoxin, being derived from C. Botulinum bacteria, which you would be able to see in soil, lakes, forest, and the intestinal tracts of mammals and fishes. It could be dangerous, which is why manufacturers only use very small dosages so that your muscles would be paralyzed temporarily and could be used to your benefit.
Preparations found in the Botulinum Toxin:
- Jeuveau (Pra Botulinum Toxin A)
- Botox (OnabotulinumtoxinA)
- Myobloc (Rimabotulinumtoxin B)
- Dysport (AbobotulinumtoxinA)
- Xeomin (Incobotulinumtoxin A)
The nerves would bring out acetylcholine, a chemical messenger that is found where you would see the nerve ends meet in the muscle cells so that the muscle could contract. Once it contracts, the acetylcholine would then attach itself to the reception of the muscle cell so that it could shorten.
The job of Botox is to prevent acetylcholine from doing its job so that your muscles would become more relaxed and less stiff.
Is Botox Cosmetic or Aesthetic?
Botox could be used for both cosmetic and aesthetic purposes, reducing the visible wrinkles on your skin, and is also being used for treatment in eye spasms, bladder disorders, migraines, and excessive sweating.
Medical Purposes
- Upper limb spasticity
- Cervical dystonia (affects the head and could cause pain in the neck)
- Strabismus (crossed-eyes)
- Blepharospasm (eyelid spasms)
- Hyperhidrosis (sweating severely on your underarms)
- Overactive bladder because of neurological conditions
- Migraine that lasts about 4 hours
- Achalasia (makes swallowing hard)
- Alopecia
- Raynaud’s disease
- Sialorrhea (too much saliva)
- Vulvodynia
- Psoriasis
- Post-herpetic neuralgia
- Dyshidrotic eczema (palms of your hand and the soles of your feet)
- Anismus (anal muscle)
Cosmetic Purposes
- Lines that could be found at the corners of your mouth
- The skin on your chin
- Wrinkles that are found in between your eyebrows
- Frown lines
- Glabellar lines
- Elevens
- Crow’s feet (or the wrinkles that are found around your eyes)
- Creases in your forehead
How Long After Injection Does Botox Work?
Doctors are going to use Botulinum toxins, diluting slaine powder, and then injecting it directly into your neuromuscular tissue at the part that you are targeting to kind of smoothen out. You are going to have to wait about 24 hours to 72 hours for the whole toxin to take effect and the whole thing could last you about 3 to 12 months (depending on the treatment) before you have to go back and get injected once again.
When you are pregnant, breastfeeding, have any allergic reactions to any of the drugs that are going to be used and any of the other ingredients, then maybe you should avoid using Botox just to be safe. You have to consult with your clinician or plastic surgeon to see if using Botox would be safe for you or not.
Recovery-wise, you are not going to need to take time off from your work since it’s not as invasive as other procedures. If you want to go back to work or go work out, then you could. But one thing you should not do is rub and massage the area that was just treated, or else the botox could spread to other parts of your face and cause drooping and temporary facial weakness.
How Much Does Botox Cost in San Antonio, Texas?
The cost of your Botox treatment would generally depend on how many injections you are going to need and how big the treatment area is, but usually, you could see that Botox injections could cost you about $15 per unit. If you want to get Botox on your eye and forehead area, you are going to need about 30 to 40 units on average, so it could cost you around $450 to $600 in total.
There are a lot of advantages of Botox, both medically and cosmetically, helping reduce the visible appearance of wrinkles on your face and prevent migraines and eye spasms. If you are interested in the whole procedure and thinking about getting one, go consult a healthcare provider.