5 Things You Need to Know About BOTOX® Safety

If you’re think­ing of get­ting BOTOX, make sure you’re doing so safely.

Pesky wrin­kles on your fore­head, lines around your mouth, sag­ging eye­brows – the signs of stress, aging, or sim­ply your genet­ics are start­ing to catch up with you.

It can be frus­trat­ing when the face in the mir­ror doesn’t reflect the ener­gy and youth­ful­ness you feel inside. One solu­tion you may be con­sid­er­ing is bot­u­linum type A injec­tions – most com­mon­ly known as BOTOX® Cosmetic.

BOTOX injec­tions are treat­ments that can tem­porar­i­ly make your face appear younger. They can treat severe fore­head lines, frown lines, crow’s feet lines, and platys­ma bands (lines on the front of the neck).

In gen­er­al, BOTOX injec­tions are very safe – but only if they’re giv­en cor­rect­ly.

Here are five things you need to know about BOTOX safety:

1. The med­ica­tion in BOTOX is safe.

BOTOX is among the most well-known brands of an injectable med­ica­tion called bot­u­linum tox­in. It works its mag­ic by block­ing cer­tain nerve sig­nals to your mus­cles, stop­ping them from tens­ing up (con­tract­ing) and allow­ing them to relax.

While BOTOX is most com­mon­ly used to get rid of wrin­kles or frown lines, it can also relieve symp­toms of some health con­di­tions, such as:

• Neck or mus­cle spasms
• Exces­sive sweating
• Upper or low­er eye­lid spasm
• Blad­der problems
• Migraines

Try not to let the word ​“tox­in” make you squirm. It’s true that large amounts of nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring bot­u­linum tox­in in con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed food or in a wound can make you sick. How­ev­er, it’s very rare to get sick from a BOTOX injec­tion. The type of bot­u­linum tox­in used in BOTOX is made in a lab where it’s ster­il­ized, and there is only a small dose in each injection.

2. Licensed med­ical pro­fes­sion­als are the only ones who should pro­vide BOTOX.

There are many places that offer BOTOX, but it’s impor­tant to only get an injec­tion from a licensed health­care provider. In cer­tain states (includ­ing Indi­ana), being a licensed med­ical pro­fes­sion­al is required to admin­is­ter BOTOX.

Get­ting BOTOX from some­one who isn’t licensed increas­es your risk of acci­den­tal­ly being giv­en fake BOTOX. This is a coun­ter­feit prod­uct that can cause seri­ous effects, which may even be life-threat­en­ing. Licensed providers, on the oth­er hand, can only pur­chase BOTOX from phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­ply chains. You can rest assured that they are only giv­ing injec­tions that meet med­ical con­trol standards.

3. Where you get BOTOX per­formed is just as impor­tant as who you get it from.

Get­ting BOTOX in a health­care set­ting like a physician’s office or med spa is much safer than get­ting it in a non­med­ical day spa or at a ​“BOTOX par­ty” (where peo­ple gath­er in a home or hotel to get BOTOX as a group event).

Health­care set­tings typ­i­cal­ly have high­er clean­li­ness and san­i­ta­tion stan­dards. There are also usu­al­ly oth­er pro­fes­sion­als and life­sav­ing med­ical equip­ment on hand in case you have an aller­gic reac­tion and need addi­tion­al care.

4. You need to make sure that you’re a good can­di­date for BOTOX.

Even though BOTOX is gen­er­al­ly safe, it isn’t right for every­one. BOTOX isn’t rec­om­mend­ed if you are preg­nant or breast­feed­ing, since there isn’t enough research about whether or not it’s safe. It’s also not rec­om­mend­ed if you:

• Have med­ical con­di­tions like droop­ing eye­lids, a swal­low­ing dis­or­der, or some types of neu­ro­mus­cu­lar disease
• Have weak facial muscles
• Take cer­tain med­ica­tions that could inter­act with BOTOX, such as hydrox­yzine (Atarax and Vis­tar­il) or tizani­dine (Zanaflex®)

If you’re con­cerned about get­ting BOTOX, you can always check with your provider to make sure it’s right for you.

5. You don’t need to pan­ic about BOTOX side effects.

There’s good news if you’re wor­ried about side effects. Most peo­ple feel fine after get­ting an injec­tion, and many go back to their dai­ly lives right away. In fact, it’s often a ​“lunchtime” pro­ce­dure that’s done in the mid­dle of the day.

It is still pos­si­ble to have some minor side effects, such as:

• Pain or red­ness where you were injected
• Mild headaches (which may be due to BOTOX ini­tial­ly caus­ing some mus­cle spasms)
• Flu-like symp­toms
• Eye irri­ta­tion
• Upset stom­ach

These side effects are usu­al­ly mild, get bet­ter on their own with­in a day or two, and aren’t a sign that some­thing has gone wrong.

How­ev­er, there are rare cas­es where side effects are severe or a sign that you need med­ical atten­tion. Call your provider imme­di­ate­ly if you expe­ri­ence these effects after receiv­ing BOTOX:

• Signs of a uri­nary tract infec­tion, like blood in your urine
• Vision prob­lems, such as droopy eye­lids or blurred vision
• Breath­ing problems
• Dif­fi­cul­ty swal­low­ing or talking
• Slurred speech
• Loss of blad­der control
• Mus­cle weakness
• Severe­ly upset stomach
• Numb­ness or paral­y­sis (inabil­i­ty to move) in a part of your body that did not receive BOTOX

These effects may mean that the BOTOX has acci­den­tal­ly spread to anoth­er part of your body – and this can be seri­ous. For exam­ple, if BOTOX caus­es dif­fi­cul­ty swal­low­ing, you may have an increased risk of chok­ing or prob­lems breath­ing. For­tu­nate­ly, these types of prob­lems are very rare.

At the end of the day, take a deep breath and rest assured that BOTOX is usu­al­ly safe. As long as you take the right pre­cau­tions, you can be just as relaxed as those BOTOX-ed muscles.

With our state-of-the-art equip­ment and ful­ly licensed staff at South Bend Clin­ic Aes­thet­ics & Spa, you can relax your mus­cles in a calm­ing atmos­phere under the care and direc­tion of our board-cer­ti­fied, licensed clin­i­cians. We will enhance your nat­ur­al beau­ty, reduce the signs of aging, and give you the con­fi­dence you need to put your best face forward.