Refresh and Restore Your Image
When you smile, laugh, frown, or look puzzled, the muscles in your face contract. Over time, these contractions produce permanent furrows and wrinkles in the skin, especially around the eyes and mouth, between the eyebrows, and on the forehead. These lines can make you look older, sad, angry, and tired. Botox® cosmetic injections not only prevent you from deepening lines during natural facial movements, but Botox can also erase these marks of aging, leaving you looking younger and refreshed.
What is Botox?
Botox decreases the appearance of aging by reducing muscle movement. It is short for “Botulinum Toxin,” a neurotoxin in the form of a purified protein. When injected into the facial muscle, Botox blocks transmitters between the motor nerves that innervate the muscle. Once the motor nerve endings are interrupted, the muscle cannot contract, thus causing wrinkles in the skin to smooth out and reveal younger, firmer-looking skin. Areas where you can receive Botox treatment include the:
- Glabellar Area (the 11’s/frown lines between the eyes)
- Forehead or Frontalis Muscles (forehead lines)
- Crow’s Feet (around the corners of the eyes
- Chin Dimples
- Radial Lip Lines (smoker’s lines)
- Nose lines, bunny lines
- Black triangles in between teeth
- Gummy smiles
Botulinum Toxin can also be used to reduce the muscle mass in the masseters (jaw line) for a slimming, esthetic facial result. Additionally, Botox has important clinical uses for patients with chronic TMJ and orofacial pain. And Botox is a complement to cosmetic dentistry, serving as a minimally invasive alternative to surgery. Many patients find relief from facial tension, headaches, and even migraines with the use of BOTOX® Cosmetic.
Affects on Your Oral & Dental Health
In addition to improving your esthetic image, Botox’s clinical uses can positively impact your oral and dental health. If you suffer from jaw clenching that results in TMD or other chronic orofacial pain, Botox can help alleviate you symptoms, serving as a less invasive and less painful alternative to jaw surgery. By injecting BOTOX® into your strong jaw muscles, we can reduce the force that you exert while clenching or grinding your teeth. This is especially effective for patients who use BOTOX® in conjunction with a nightguard to protect your teeth from damage due to a clenching and grinding habit.
When you smile, do you feel the appearance of your upper teeth is overshadowed by excessive gum tissue? Are you of the opinion that your upper teeth appear too short compared to the amount of gum tissue displayed when you smile? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, you may have a condition that is commonly called a “gummy smile” or excessive gingival display. A gummy smile can have a negative effect on the esthetics of your smile. The good news is that a gummy smile can be corrected. The optimal smile line appearance should reveal the least amount of gum tissue possible. Gum tissue visible in the smile line should have balanced, even contours that are in harmony with the upper lip. It is for this reason that many people with a gummy smile or excessive gingival display feel their smile to be unattractive, oftentimes feeling reluctant to smile at all. Treatments used to be just gum surgery or elongation of the teeth, now there is a simple process with the use of Botox. The muscle that controls the movement of your upper lip could be hyperactive, causing your upper lip to rise up higher than normal. When this occurs, more of your gum tissue is exposed when you smile. Botox relaxes the muscle of the upper lip so it will lay down over the teeth exactly where the smile line should be.
The Process
Receiving a Botox injection only takes a few minutes and there’s no need for anesthesia or down time. The injections are made using a very fine needle and are virtually painless. Generally, results are visible within two to fourteen days. To reduce the possibility of bruising/swelling, it is recommended that you avoid alcohol for at least 24 hours and avoid taking aspirin/anti-inflammatory medications for a period of two weeks prior to the procedure. As always, consult your physician before stopping any medications.
Common Side Effects
There is no loss of sensory feeling in the muscles. The most common side effects of Botox injections are bruising, redness, and swelling. Other, rare side effects are possible and will be reviewed prior to treatment. To avoid adverse reactions/results, do not manipulate the treated area for four hours after injections and maintain an upright position.
How Long Do Effects Last?
The effects of Botox typically last three to four months. As the treated muscles regain movement, lines and wrinkles will begin to reappear and require retreatment at our Norwalk office. Over time and continuous treatment, these lines and wrinkles should appear less noticeable because the Botox has trained the treated muscles to relax.
Look Younger Today!
If you want more radiant skin, Botox injections with Dr. Donna Grant is the right step for you. I can’t wait to help you look and feel younger!
For more information about Botox, visit: www.botoxcosmetic.com.
Dermal Filler
Dermal filler is used via injection in order to fill in moderate to deep wrinkles around the eyes, lips, nose, and to add volume to lips. Dermal fillers do just that – fill out the appearance of the face and reduce folds, feathering, and wrinkles.
Dermal fillers will volumize creases and folds in the face in areas that have lost fat and collagen as we age. After age 30, we all lose approximately 1% of hyaluronic acid from our bodies. Hyaluronic acid is the natural filler substance in your body. The face starts to lack volume and appears aged with deeper nasolabial folds, unaesthetic marionette lines, a deeper mentalis fold, the lips start to thin, and turning down the corners of the lips. Hyaluronic acid fillers are then injected extraorally right underneath these folds to replace the volume lost which creates a younger look in the face. Dermal fillers can be used for high lip line cases, asymmetrical lips around the mouth, lip augmentation, and completing cosmetic dentistry cases by creating a beautiful, young-looking frame around the teeth. The effect of dermal fillers typically last anywhere from 12 to 18 months at which point the procedure needs to be repeated. Both Botox and dermal fillers are procedures that take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes.
There is one huge advantage dentists have in delivering dermal fillers over any other healthcare professional. Most physicians and nurses use topical anesthetics and ice on the skin to numb the patient. This will be a painful procedure when done this way. Most dentists inject in the same areas where Botox and dermal fillers are injected for cosmetic results. The only difference is that I inject intraorally into these facial structures while Botox and dermal fillers injections are extraoral injections. Another reason why dentists are the best professionals to deliver these applications is because we are the best injectors around. We inject anesthetic for a living and we know how to make these injections comfortable, quick, and relatively painless for our patients.