Botox Has Its Dangers

It seems like a quick fix. Just one simple injection and fine lines and wrinkles can be gone for at least several months. The anti-wrinkle treatment works well at combating problems associated with aging, but it has some serious and sometimes fatal consequences to consider. In the last few years there have been serious concerns about the safety of repeated use of this medication. There have been results ranging from as minor as trouble swallowing to trouble breathing and occasionally death.

The good news is the only instances where death took place were in patients who were being treated with Botox for non-cosmetic reasons. Usually cerebral palsy is the disease being treated as the drug works to fight spasms and seizures that are causing harm to these patients. In most instances these patients are receiving doses hundreds of times greater than those used for cosmetic procedures. It is easy to understand when you consider how much more difficult it must be to subdue a muscle of the arm compared to the tiny muscles in the face and forehead.

The greatest danger is the fact that there is no upper limit of safety that has been imposed by the FDA when it comes to doses of Botox. For obvious reasons the risk of subjecting patients to increasingly higher exposure of a toxin as dangerous as botulinum is not worth the benchmark it may ascribe. However, there is a general consensus among practitioners regarding adequate or excessive dosing of patients. The real danger comes when doctors misinterpret the results.

Botox is a fantastic drug for treating fine lines and wrinkles around the forehead eyes and mouth. It works almost instantly and there is next to no recovery time. The treatment lasts upwards of six months and there is almost no contraindication for having the procedure again and again and again. However, some doctors who have had limited experience fall prey to the old adage, “If a little works well, a lot will work better.” This is a slippery slope because once the muscles of the face can no longer intake more of the Botox it begins to go into the bloodstream where it could cause serious harm. Imagine if the effectiveness of this medication at paralyzing the fine muscles of the forehead were to work equally effectively on a muscle like the diaphragm or the heart. In nature this is how this toxin kills, but carefully controlled and directed as medication it is capable of localized beneficial results.

Fortunately, most cosmetic surgeons work in concert with each other to establish guidelines and education for each other. They use each other’s missteps to improve the system and create a better model of treatment for their patients. Although it is tragic that some people have suffered sometimes-serious side effects from participating in Botox treatments the medical community has learned from its mistakes and increased the effectiveness and precision of administration.