Surely, you already have read about Botox Cosmetic from different media like advertisements, blogs, and celebrity gossip magazines, or you may have even heard it directly from your friends. Even with such vast information. There are still a lot of misconceptions that are being circulated about Botox treatment and how it is being used.

The cosmetic treatment for Botox has been available by prescription in the United States since the year 2002 when the FDA has approved of it. In fact, there are a lot of Botox Alpharetta clinics that have operated ever since. It should also be noted that this is the same Botox that is being injected for medical purposes such as that for uncontrolled muscle spas, that has since been approved by the FDA in the year 1989.

In the year 2017, the botulinum toxin or Botox was the top nonsurgical procedure that is being done in the United States. In fact, there have been 1,548,236 injections if Botox, Dysport, and Xeomin that has been performed by physicians including their physician assistants and the nurse injectors. This figure has been up by 30 percent from the 1,190,995 botox injection that has been done way back in the year 2012.

What to Know About the Botox Alpharetta Cosmetic

Generally, Botox is being used for three main purposes; these are for muscle spasm control, severe underarm sweating, and for cosmetic improvement. This article is only going to focus on the third purpose for Botox – that is for cosmetic improvement that has been offered by a lot of Botox Alpharetta clinics. Botox cosmetics contains botulinum toxin type A which is the active ingredient, human albumin which is a protein that is found in human blood plasma and sodium chloride.

This has been used for the temporary smoothing of frown lines which are the lines that you will eventually see between your eyebrows that can make you look like your tired or unhappy or even angry.

The FDA approval is limited to this area only, but it is still often used as off-label for horizontal forehead lines, crow’s feet, marionette lines that are visible at the corners of the mouth and the smoker’s lines which are visible around the lips.

It is also important that you should not confuse Botox with injectable fillers because dermal fillers work differently, as it plumps up tissues so that the lines and wrinkles will diminish or disappear.

When you go to your Botox Alpharetta clinic, your practitioner should be able to help you in deciding which of the products will be able to help you solve your particular appearance issues. But, as a general rule, Botox is usually used mostly for the upper part of the face, while fillers are usually used mostly in other areas.

Not Everyone is Qualified to get a Botox Alpharetta Treatment

The Food and Drug Administration has approved Botox cosmetics for people who are ages 18 to 65. However, even if you are qualified in terms of age, you should not get Botox treatment if you suffer from the following conditions:

1. If you are allergic to any ingredients that are being contained in Botox or Botox Cosmetic
2. If you are allergic to other botulinum toxin brand or if you had suffered from any side effects from Myobloc, Xeomin, or Dysport in the past.
3. If you have a skin infection or other type of condition in the injection area.
4. If you are suffering from ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, myasthenia, gravis, Lambert-Eaton syndrome or another type of disease that is affecting your muscles or nerves.
5. If you are suffering from breathing problems, like asthma.
6. If you have difficulty in swallowing.
7. If you have bleeding issues.
8. If you are planning to undergo surgery.
9. If you just had facial surgery.
10. If you have weakness in your forehead muscles.
11. If you have drooping eyelids.
12. If you are taking or have recently taken certain medications, vitamins or supplements.

If you are pregnant, you should consult with your OB-Gyne first before getting a Botox treatment. But, generally, Botox cosmetic is not really expected to travel far enough through the body as to affect a fetus or a breastfeeding infant. However, of course, for ethical reasons, clinical studies have not been done when the patient is an expectant or new mother, so, nobody really knows for sure.

As a rule of thumb, if you are planning or is trying to conceive a child, or, if you are pregnant and you are planning to breastfeed your baby or is currently breastfeeding your baby, it is highly recommended that you should not have Botox injection yet. Anyway, you can still get it later on, if you still want to.

How Does Botox Alpharetta Injections Work?

You can usually see wrinkles forming in the skin when it is formed perpendicularly to a contracting muscle that is located directly beneath it. Let us take the forehead for example; the muscle in the forehead is a vertical muscle, so when it contracts, the lines that form are called the wrinkles and this will look to be horizontal.

When Botox is going to be injected into the muscles, this is going to be where it is going to block nerve impulses to those tissues. The muscle activities that are causing the frown lines to appear are then going to be reduced thus giving you smoother looking results. So, without a contracting muscle that is beneath it, the skin then will have a difficult time wrinkling.

If you have facial lines that still exist even when your face is totally relaxed, you might not be a very good candidate for Botox, and these lines might be better handled by the dermal filler because Botox can only soften these lines, and not totally get rid of it.

The Botox injections will usually take up to 10 minutes, and after that, you should not have any downtime. You will then see the improvement within a few days, and whatever effect that is going to be obtained within two weeks after the injection should be considered as the maximum effect that is to occur.