Do you know how important it is to have a follow up appointment after your Botox treatment? Keep reading to learn more.
What is Botox?
Botox is a purified protein that’s used for many things. Botox can be used to treat wrinkles caused by facial expressions such as your frown lines. Botox can also be used for other purposes such as a lip flip, to slim your lower face, to treat migraine headaches, and even to treat excessive sweating.
What happens after a Botox treatment?
Botox works by relaxing your muscles. This occurs by blocking the signal from your nerves to the muscle. For the first few hours to few days, the Botox starts to attach to the ends of the nerves. As this happens, your muscles will relax and you won’t see your wrinkles. Most people see the initial results of their Botox treatment in the first few days. The clinical trials demonstrated that people see the peak effects of their Botox treatment two weeks later.
When will I see the results of my Botox treatment?
There is a lot of variability in terms of when you’ll see the full results of your Botox treatment. Some people see their Botox results in just a few days. Other people see their full Botox results at the two-week point. Still others will notice initial improvement in the first few days, but it will take a week or two to see the full results. Also, sometimes you’ll see your Botox results faster than others. There are many reasons for this. For example, some muscles react faster than others, so you may see your Botox results in one area faster than that in other areas. There is minor variability from one lot or batch to another. Sometimes this makes it take longer to see your results. Your body can have something to do with it too. For example, if you loose weight, it may take longer to see your Botox results and they may not last as long. This can also happen if you exercise a lot, if you have stress (which many people have had over the past couple of years due to Covid), if you don’t get enough sleep, if you don’t drink enough water, etc. Even changes in the weather from one season to another can affect your Botox results. This is because the changes in temperature can affect your metabolism, which will affect your results.
Why should I go back for a follow up appointment after my Botox treatment?
Cosmetic medicine is an art and not a science. Therefore, things are never perfect. Sometimes your Botox treatment will give you the perfect results you expect, and other times your results may be less than perfect, even when it’s done the same way as before. This is why it’s important to follow up about two to three weeks after your Botox treatment. At this time, you’ll see the full results and can correct anything that’s not perfect with additional units or a different treatment. This is common especially when treating horizontal forehead wrinkles. These are the ones you see when you raise your eyebrows. When this muscle is relaxed with Botox, it’s important to only treat the upper part of the muscle. Otherwise, you may have a heavy eyebrow. On the other hand, you may still see wrinkles on your lower forehead. To prevent a heave eyebrow, it’s always best to come back two or three weeks later to correct these wrinkles if necessary. If your initial Botox treatment results in a heavy eyebrow, you can have a laser skin tightening treatment to raise your brow. Or perhaps get some Botox to relax the muscles you use to pull your eyebrow down. In rare cases (generally one percent or less), you may see a heavy eyelid (not eyebrow). In these cases, you can get a prescription eyedrop to use for a few days or weeks which will improve the appearance. Sometimes you will see uneven eyebrows after a Botox treatment. In these cases, either one eyebrow is higher than the other or you can raise one eyebrow higher than the other. This is easily fixed with a little Botox above the eyebrow that’s higher. Dr. Alex always likes to start with a conservative approach and slowly add more product if desired or necessary. This way you’ll have natural results from your Botox and other treatments.
Dr. Alex has performed over 10,000 cosmetic treatments with many satisfied patients. Contact us to schedule an appointment for a free consultation with Dr. Alex in our Encino, CA office.