Botox Cosmetic is Still Safe! Notes from a San Francisco Bay Area Dermatologist

The new FDA warnings on Botox have caused undue alarm.  The FDA recently approved a new warning on Allergan’s Botox and a similar product about the possibility of life-threatening breathing and swallowing problems.  It is important to know that these warnings are referring specifically to off label medical uses where extremely high doses of Botox are used to treat spastic conditions in children with Cerebral Palsy.

Botox Cosmetic is still FDA approved for the treatment of glabellar or “frown lines” and is administered in much smaller doses for this aesthetic use.  The doses of Botox are significantly greater for medical uses than for an aesthetic procedure.

More than 13 million aesthetic procedures with Botox Cosmetic have been administered since the product was FDA approved in 2002 in the United States for treatment of moderate to severe “frown lines” in adults 18 to 65.  Botox Cosmetic, when used in the indicated doses and administered to specific small muscle groups has not been linked to serious side effects.

There is a new botulinum product called Dysport on the market that is also approved for aesthetic procedures.  Its dosing is slightly different than Botox Cosmetic.  To avoid confusion, the FDA wants to call attention to the different dosing instructions with Dysport and decrease the risk of any side effects.  This and increasing off label use of Botox to treat conditions ranging from muscle spasms to Raynaud’s disease prompted the FDA to enact new warnings.

When administered by a professional for aesthetic procedures, Botox is still an extremely, safe, simple effective way to smooth wrinkles and lines.

Tags: bay area dermatologist, Botox, botulism, dysport, frown lines, glabellar lines, san francisco bay area dermatologist, san francisco dermatologist

This entry was posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 11:50 am and is filed under Botox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.