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As a board certified dermatologist with over 16 years of experience using BOTOX, Dr. Shelley Sekula Gibbs is skilled in achieving the optimum benefits of BOTOX while safeguarding to minimize complications from this powerful drug.
Dynamic wrinkles are caused by contraction of underlying
facial muscles. To treat these unwanted lines most effectively, it is
necessary to treat the source of the wrinkle, the muscle itself.
With carefully administered Botox Cosmetic®, an FDA-approved drug, dynamic wrinkles
can be dramatically softened and in some cases eliminated.
BOTOX Cosmetic® is injected into the muscle to prevent it
from contracting. Treatments are performed during a routine office
visit and the effects usually last 4-6 months. The most common
areas for the BOTOX® treatment included the frown lines between
the eyebrows, horizontal forehead creases, and crow's feet wrinkles
near the eyes. Properly administered, BOTOX® has an excellent safety record. Side
effects are usually minimal and short lived such as tenderness and bruising at the injection site. But some of the more serious include weakness, blurry vision, drooping eyelids or eyebrows, slurred speech and movement of Botox to distant areas.
DYSPORT (abobotulinumtoxinA)
New perscription Dysport is an injection used to temporarily improve the look of moderate to severe frown lines between the eyebrows. Dysport has been used for aesthetic treatments in 34 countries. In the United States, the safety of Dysport for the treatment of frown lines was studied in more than 2400 patients. Dr. Sekula-Gibbs had experience with Dysport in 1992 while studying in England.
In 2001, BOTOX® was FDA-approved for underarm hyperhidrosis, a condition of overly active sweat glands stimulated by the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. Sweating is the body's natural method of cooling itself down during periods such as exercise or when exposed to warm weather. A person with hyperhidrosis experiences excessive sweating in times of stress but often in non-stressful situations for no understandable reason. Those who suffer from this hyperhidrosis face major challenges every day.
By blocking the release of acetylcholine, which activates the sweat glands, BOTOX Therapeutic® injections can relieve excessive sweating. A topical anesthetic and/or a regional nerve block may be used to reduce discomfort. A starch iodine test may be useful to help define the areas to be treated. If sweating impairs the activities of daily living and other treatments such as Drysol® have been tried without success, BOTOX Therapeutic® may be covered by your insurance plan.
Previous treatments for excessive underarm perspiration ---which is known as axillary hyperhidrosis---were often ineffective and short-acting, or were associated with significant risks. Studies have shown that 80 to 95% of patients respond to one treatment BOTOX® session (Naumann 2001; Lowe 2003; Naumann 2003). Along with a decrease in perspiration, injections can improve quality of life (Campanati 2003) and decrease body odour (Heckmann 2003) for up to 7 months (Naumann 2003). A long-term study has shown that side effects are minimal, and repeated injections over 16 months are safe and efficacious, with 50% or greater reduction in sweating seen in 96% of patients after the first treatment (Naumann 2003).
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