Ease Worry Lines with Botox Cosmetics
Women are in love with it, the medical fraternity loves it, and the cosmetics industry simply adores it! Botox cosmetics, right?
The brand name for a toxin, Botox has been advertised so much by the cosmetics industry that some have forgotten that it was first discovered by the medical fraternity.
What is Botox?
Botox is the contracted version of the term botulinum toxin, one of the most potent neurotoxins known to man. Produced by a bacteria called clostridium botulinum, it causes muscle paralysis and in extreme cases, even death. This usually takes place in cases of food poisoning caused by inappropriate food processing procedures.
But used in small and diluted form, this neurotoxin is a multi-billion dollar industry and the face of it is the smiling face of an attractive young woman staring at you from a newspaper or online advertisement for Botox treatment.
Botox cosmetics are injectable and are used to alleviate wrinkles and crow’s feet around the eyes and “make you smile like a million”! The secret of this wonder cosmetic is that it blocks the signals sent by the nerves to the muscles, causing the muscles to relax.
Since the muscle now fails to contract, wrinkles and worry lines disappear, seemingly like magic.
Botox Discovery
The botulinum toxin was first discovered in the 19th century when a German physician dubbed it “sausage poison” because he observed that it grew in sausages and other meat that had turned rancid. It was only later, in 1870, that the term botulism was coined and a couple of decades later that the bacteria clostridium botulinum was identified.
It was in the late 1980s that the US Food and Drugs Administration approved the use of Botox for the treatment of aliments such as uncontrolled blinking of the eyes or blepharospasm and cosmetic surgeons have been using it for years to iron out wrinkles.
But it was only in April 2002 that the FDA officially cleared the use of Botox in the treatment of frown lines, also called galbellar lines.
Painless Procedure
Administering Botox cosmetics is a simple, quick and almost-painless procedure. It has in face been nicknames a “lunchtime procedure” because you can undergo a single session in your lunch break!
All the doctor does is injecting Botox into the targeted areas of the face and it’s done. There may be mild irritation immediately afterwards but that clears up soon enough. However, it takes up to a week for the results to show.
Repeating Botox Treatments
The thing with Botox is that its results are not permanent. Far from it. Its effects wear off after about six months and one need to return for treatment if one wants to wish those worry lines away and keep looking ageless and young!
After each treatment, patients may suffer temporary bruising. There may be headaches for a couple of days. But if your eyelids droop, it means the Botox has spread to them.
Therefore doctors will warn patients not to lie down immediately after a procedure and to avoid rubbing the area that has been injected for an entire day.
Botox procedures are not recommended for pregnant women, women who are breastfeeding and patients with neurological disorders.
Wrinkles are the natural consequence of age and prolonged exposure to the sun which dries the skin. But they may be aggravated by smoking and certain occupations which require strenuous work. There is also some evidence that wrinkles are hereditary.
But despite the absence of all these factors, there’s one condition you can’t escape – ageing. As the skin ages, the muscles begin to lose their elasticity. They are no longer taught and the skin begins to wrinkle.
Treatment for wrinkles other than Botox cosmetics include creams containing Vitamin a acid or tretinonin. It’s the active ingredient in these drugs and has proved effective. Alpha-hydroxy acids and antioxydants are another formulation that is only moderately successful.
But most people prefer quick-fix answers and a large number of women – and increasingly men – opt for Botox cosmetics.
