If you live, you age; there’s absolutely no way around this at the moment. What we find most often is not that our patients don’t want to age, but that they want to know how they can maintain and manage their appearance as the signs of aging develop. To date, Botox and Dysport have had a meaningful impact on the concept of anti-aging. Here, we discuss a few of the common types of wrinkles for which Botox may be ideal.
What Muscles Have to do with Wrinkles
Most people know that the skin loses resiliency with age. In some places, the skin becomes paper-thin. In other places, skin just gets saggy and wrinkled. What flies below the radar is the impact of facial muscle movement. Contrary to the weakening that affects the skin, contractions in facial muscles lead to strengthening over time. So, the older we get, the stronger and more consistent the contractions in facial muscles tend to be. This is why some people live in a perpetual frown. But rather than choose to never express emotions again, what most people do about muscle-related wrinkles is reduce or eliminate them with Botox.
Because Botox works on muscle tissue, this product is ideal for certain wrinkles only. These include:
- Frown lines. Also referred to as glabellar lines or 11’s, the vertical lines between the eyebrows make the face appear angry.
- Crow’s feet. Lines at the outer edges of the eyes occur when we laugh and smile. Over time, they remain even when the face is at rest.
- Worry lines. Horizontal lines on the forehead result from raising the eyebrows. Interestingly, many people develop these lines by contracting the frontalis muscle in an effort to reduce the heavy look and feel of aging eyelids.
- Bunny lines. This type of wrinkle sounds cute, but it can be quite a frustrating problem. Bunny lines run horizontally across the bridge of the nose. If this wrinkle exists, it may be treated alongside frown lines for more proportionate results.
Botox may also be used to reduce chin dimpling or to raise the corners of the mouth. On the lower face, however, most lines and creases are treated with dermal fillers.
Case ID: 3365
