It still boggles my mind that fine line and wrinkle treatment, using botulinum toxin, can be so effective! More so, it amazes me that over the decades that I have been offering this treatment, more uses keep emerging. From helping depression to boosting skin health, the treatment options available to my patients keeps on growing!
However, the downside can be having to return multiple times a year, which isn’t great if you don’t like needles! So here are some top tips to help you extend the time between your visits…
Making sure your doctor/dentist/nurse practitioner is experienced will go a long way to ensuring you get the right areas treated appropriately. Some patients are regularly recalled by their injector to get ‘top ups’ but, in my opinion, this shouldn’t be necessary, unless it’s the first time you have been treated by the person.
Of course, your body isn’t always predictable, so occasionally you may require adjustments to your fine line and wrinkle treatment after a few weeks. Having regular ‘top ups’ will make Botox® less effective for you, so it’s important to avoid them if you can.
Consider not using face scrubs, masks or toners one week before your treatment. These can alter the chemistry of your skin by causing inflammation, which may result in your fine line and wrinkle treatment being less effective.
Ask your injector about other brands that might work for you. After many decades, new botulinum brands have now been developed, each with their own characteristics and benefits. This means that, if your regular treatment with the Botox® brand isn’t working as well as you’d like, your injector now has other brands they can try to see if they give you better fine line and wrinkle treatment results that last longer.
Any experienced doctor/dentist /nurse will be able to discuss the alternative brands that are available and give their advice on whether they may be helpful to you.
In a study by Koshy JC et al. (Journal of Drugs and Dermatol 2012 Apr;11(4):507-12), researchers found that zinc and/or phytase supplementation boosted the effects of botulinum treatments by 30% on average.
‘Surprisingly, the results showed that in over ninety percent of the patients studied, the zinc/phytase combination resulted in a remarkable improved responsiveness to treatment of blepharospasm using the same amount of botulinum toxin as previously used’, said Soparkar, M.D., Ph.D., an oculoplastic surgeon. ‘The toxins seemed to have a greater effect and last longer. Potentially, this could mean using less toxin, offering patients financial savings, greater safety, and more consistent results.’
Remember that this requires some planning, as studies have shown that you have to start zinc supplements 4 days prior to treatment for them to have any effect!
Now you know my top tips to get the best results from your fine line and wrinkle treatment, it’s time for you to get yourself booked in! You can do so quickly and easily on our website. You can also find all of our contact details on this page in case there are any questions that you would like to ask.
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There’s no doubt that injectables like fillers and Botox® are the most effective line-reducing treatments available. Others might help to some extent but they will never achieve what injectables can. Furthermore, these treatments, in the right hands, are very safe and almost painless. The proof is in the sheer number of people who have been treated worldwide! Allergan reports that, as a brand leader in the field of dermal fillers, they recently achieved a major milestone for their key brand Juvéderm with ‘100 million syringes of their product delivered globally’. Isn’t that incredible?
Some of you might be reluctant to try injectables for various reasons. You might feel scared about ‘losing’ your expressions or you’re worried that you won’t look natural and that others will know you’ve visited a clinic… or are you just scared in general?
Rest assured, safety is my top priority when treating my patients. I like to see myself and my team as ‘gatekeepers’.
Gatekeepers, like us, keep you safe and won't recommend a treatment that's not in your best interest, so there’s no danger of you looking ‘overdone’. If a treatment isn’t right for you, we’ll say so! It’s not just about the look though, we also make sure that you’re in the right headspace. The only reason to undergo any of our procedures is because you want to. Don’t ever forget that! Accountable to our registered bodies (the GDC and HIS), we have to act within clear clinical and safety guidelines or risk getting struck off.
In order to be a gatekeeper, you must be properly trained. I have a Level 7 postgraduate OFQUAL qualification in injectables and I’ve been a dentist for years! What’s more, at No. 4, we have fantastic knowledge and experience - Su and I have over 60 years of clinical experience combined (we know, we don’t look old enough)!
The most important thing when choosing your clinic is to make sure the practitioners are fully qualified. The experience never hurts too though!
You should always expect the best!
Good gatekeepers will always give you all your options and give you time to make your decision as to whether to have treatment or not. We’re not saleswomen, we’re beauty practitioners! We will always conduct a thorough consultation and get to know you first. If injectables don’t suit your medical profile, lifestyle or expectations, we will let you know. After all, we don’t just deal with treatments, we deal with people.
It’s also important that you know you will receive good aftercare. You shouldn’t have your treatment and get kicked straight out of the door! You need to know how to best maintain your results. We’re always on hand to offer advice on which products will suit your skin and my team always want to ensure that you’re happy with your results. In short, you won’t get away from us that quickly…
If you want to get rid of lines and wrinkles, injectables are the best way to do so, but only when you're being treated by experienced, caring professionals.
The first thing to do is book in for your consultation, you can do this easily online. If you’re not quite ready for that, it may be helpful to get to know our clinic better, you can learn more about us on our website or by following us on Facebook and Instagram.
When it comes to Botox, particularly Botox for frown lines, we must consider the chicken and the egg question. What does Botox have to do with chickens and eggs, you may ask? Well, it’s to do with the old question of which came first. The chicken or the egg?
You would think that your happiness is down to your mindset but it just so happens that scientific research points towards the opposite being true. Botox for frown lines has mood-boosting abilities and ridding ourselves of negative expressions, like scowling, can make us happier.
Coles recently proved this by combining data from 138 studies and over 11,000 participants. The results were exciting as they show that smiling more does actually make you happier, but also that scowling and frowning more will make you feel sadder.
Whatever your thoughts on this study are, it’s my opinion that they show how the mind and body interact to shape our feelings. Unsurprisingly, many factors have been shown to influence our emotions, so you may not be able to smile your way to happiness. However, I’ve witnessed something in my patients who get regular Botox treatments - they smile more and frown less!
Many of my patients have Botox for frown lines. As a result of treating this area, they aren’t able to frown fully, but that’s not to say that they can’t still move their muscles. A ‘frozen’ look would be quite strange - but they certainly can’t scowl anymore. Apart from boosting their confidence levels, this also seems to make them happier!
I did some digging and it seems that there is proof that Botox treatments may have other mood-altering effects. In particular, reducing anxiety levels and depression. There are several theories on why this happens and while none of them are proven, what is certain is that patients in these studies benefited from Botox for frown lines.
It seems that my patients are right - their treatments aren’t just for aesthetic purposes, but they also help to lift their mood and give them confidence in the things they do that matter so much to them. Socialising, going for a job interview or even a date night feels different when your mood is better. It’s simply sunshine in a vial!
Learn more about anti-wrinkle treatments here and if you’d like to get booked in for a consultation to discuss Botox for frown lines, simply fill out a contact form.
At No4 Clinic, we’re all about helping you to maintain a natural, youthful look so that you can be the very best version of yourself. We take the time to understand how to manage the ageing process on an individual basis through a treatment plan that is tailored specifically to your needs.
We hope to hear from you soon and can’t wait to help you on your journey to happiness and self-confidence!
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