Botox remains one of the most popular cosmetic treatments to this day. The minimally invasive procedure yields fast and efficient results without suffering from pain and undergoing lengthy downtime.
What Is Botox?
Botox is short for botulinum toxin. Yes, Botox is a toxin or poison. It’s the same toxin that causes deadly botulism poisoning. This type of poisoning is life-threatening as it leads to paralysis, breathing difficulty, and eventually death.
The most common way a person can get exposed to botulism is through ingesting incorrectly prepared home-canned food. But in small and correct doses, the toxin gives many benefits in both cosmetic and medical procedures. The toxin from Botox comes from the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.
When injected into an area, the toxin blocks signals from nerves to the muscles. As a result, the injected muscles can’t contract. It will take up to two weeks before the Botox takes full effect, but the treatment will last for three to six months. The treatment addressing facial wrinkles needs to be repeated to achieve better results. But over time, the lines appear less severe because of the shrinking of the muscles. One needs to have only two sessions per year to see significant improvement in treating wrinkles.
How Is Botox Used?
Botox is not only used for cosmetic treatments. It also addresses many medical conditions like the following:
- Hyperhidrosis or severe underarm sweating.
- Blepharospasm or uncontrolled blinking
- Cervical dystonia, a painful condition that causes the neck muscles to contract involuntarily and move from side to side or tilt forward or backward.
- Overactive bladder or OAB, the frequent and sudden urge to urinate that’s difficult to control
- Chronic migraine is a condition when a patient has headaches for more than 15 days in a month, with half of it having migraine severity and the episodes recurring for three months.
- Amblyopia or lazy eye is a condition where one eye is weaker and wanders inward or upward.
Botox has many uses in the medical field and has helped many patients treat painful, embarrassing, and life-altering conditions. In the same way, Botox has helped many achieve younger-looking skin devoid of lines or wrinkles. Botox Milton is available for procedures to address the three facial muscles to look young and wrinkle-free. The three facial muscles where Botox is most commonly used are:
- The Glabella
This area is also called the ‘frown line’. This is the area above the nose and between the eyebrows. Usually, when you’re thinking deeply, you tend to frown, and this creates creases in your glabella, called glabellar lines or forehead furrows.
- Crow’s Feet
This area is called orbicularis oculi, the fine lines and wrinkles found at the corners of your eyes. Crow’s feet are impossible to prevent as they naturally appear as people age. But they seem more pronounced for people who tend to stay out long in the sun, causing the skin to dry out and form creases.
Even though crow’s feet are bound to happen, one can delay its arrival by following specific regimens. When going out, it’s essential to wear sunscreen to protect the skin from the harmful rays of the sun, wear sunglasses to prevent the eyes from squinting when hit by the sun’s glare. Lastly, moisturizing your face at least twice a day may prevent the skin from drying out. Having a healthy and balanced diet and exercising regularly may also help.
- Smile Lines
Smile lines also called laugh lines, are wrinkles that develop around the sides of the mouth. These lines often appear as people age but can be aggravated by genetics, smoking, alcohol, sun damage, and dehydration.
Happiness is a key to longer life and laughing contributes positively to your overall wellbeing, so smile lines might be inevitable. Botox is something that you can utilize to treat smile lines and give you a more refined, smoother, and younger skin.
Conclusion
Though aging is inevitable, there are still many ways to maintain a youthful appearance. Staying out in the sun, drinking plenty of water, getting enough sleep, moisturizing, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, exercising, and cutting down on caffeine and alcohol are just some of the ways that you can delay aging.
But making silly faces for fun is something you simply must do. It’s a child-like amusement that will keep you young at heart. If you think you can’t do without smiling and laughing and frowning and making faces then take comfort in knowing that there’s something you can do to address those lines and wrinkles. Botox is a safe, minimally invasive procedure with little downtime and a proven high efficacy rate.
