Alternative Treatments For BOTOX®

Minimizing or eliminating facial fine lines and wrinkles has an enormous appeal to almost everyone. Thus, upon the commercial availability of BOTOX® Cosmetic, literally millions of people commenced having regular BOTOX® injections to help them maintain their youthful appearance. BOTOX® is certainly the most popular FDA approved wrinkle treatment. However, as result of the huge consumer demand for wrinkle treatments, there have been many, many alternative treatments that are promoted in both the consumer and medical arena as alternative treatments to BOTOX®. The financial incentives to pharmaceutical companies and cosmetic companies to market BOTOX® alternatives are tremendous.

One type of alternative to BOTOX® is a type of non surgical wrinkle smoothing treatment called a dermal filler. There are three popular dermal fillers available today…Collagen, Restylane and Juvederm. There are really two distinct types of wrinkles that can form on your facial area-“fixed wrinkles” and “mobile wrinkles”. Mobile wrinkles are “dynamic”-that is they actually move and may form and relax when you change the expression on your face. “Fixed wrinkles” on the other hand, are static and well formed and do not change in depth or appearance as you change your facial expressions. Mobile wrinkles are formed due to the pulling of overlying skin by the underlying muscle. Mobile wrinkles are best treated with BOTOX® Cosmetic. Fixed wrinkles are due to the loss of collagen from the skin that can result from sun damage or aging. Fixed wrinkles are best treated with dermal fillers. Often, patients will have a combination of mobile and fixed wrinkles and require the combination of BOTOX® and dermal fillers to get the best results.