Cosmetic Muscle Relaxants

in Edmonton & Sherwood Park

Cosmetic Muscle Relaxants at Advanced Hair & Skin Surgery

Cosmetic muscle relaxants (neuromodulators) are the most common and popular cosmetic medical treatment world-wide. Cosmetic muscle relaxants are a protein that relaxes the muscle. It is commonly used in the face to relax frown lines between the eyebrows, crow’s feet, and horizontal lines in the forehead. Dr. Elliott also uses it for several advanced treatment areas for facial shaping, including lifting down-turned mouth corners, lifting the brows, relaxing lip lines, and smoothing the neck.

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Treatment With a Cosmetic Muscle Relaxant

For a cosmetic muscle relaxant to reach the target muscle, it must be injected with a tiny needle. If you have ever had a painful treatment in the past, you owe it to yourself to try Dr. Elliott’s advanced techniques for a comfortable treatment. His patients will tell you how much easier it is in his hands. Why is this? His injection technique is unique, and he uses smaller needles. Smaller needles hurt less!

These treatments have “zero down-time.” What this means is you can have treatment and go right back to normal social activity without looking any different.

Risks and Side Effects of Cosmetic Muscle Relaxants

You may not have any cosmetic muscle relaxant treatments if you are pregnant or have a rare neurological disorder called Myesthenia Gravis. Otherwise, almost anyone can have this treatment. There are no common side-effects in the hands of an expert physician. Occasionally, you may get a small bruise at the site of injection, and with careful technique, this is rare.

Other side effects include over-relaxation of the target muscles, leading to heaviness in the forehead after treatment of forehead lines, or upper eyelid droop after frown line treatment. These side effects are temporary and are rare when you are treated by an expert physician. In the case of eyelid droop, eye-drops are used to correct this until the effect wears off.

Cosmetic Muscle Relaxants Heal and Prevent

This is a powerful statement. Cosmetic muscle relaxing treatments in an area with lines produces an improvement over the first 2 weeks as the treatment takes effect. However, it gets even better over time. If you maintain your treatment schedule, you prevent your lines from getting worse and you will see further improvement in the lines over the next 6-12 months as the skin has the chance to “heal” the line. This is what Dr. Elliott means when he says that these treatments heal.

Cost of Treatment

Pricing in Dr. Elliott’s practice is different than you will have experienced elsewhere. Most clinics charge by the “unit”, which is how cosmetic muscle relaxant dosing is measured. More than 15 years ago, Dr. Elliott changed to flat rate pricing. This means that you pay one rate each area of the face, without paying more if you need extra units of medication in that area. For example the frown lines would be one area, forehead another, etc. This makes things simpler and lowers costs for most patients when compared to typical per unit pricing.

After Treatment

You will sometimes have little bumps under the skin after injection which represent the volume of the cosmetic muscle relaxing medication under your skin. These disappear within 5 or 10 minutes as the medicine is taken up into the target muscles. This treatment takes 1-3 days to start working and every day you will feel that the muscle is a bit more relaxed. Full effect is evident by day 12, so Dr. Elliott will always see you for a follow-up visit at 14 days. Any bothersome movement in the treated muscles can be settled with a small touch-up dose, which is free of charge.

Theraputic Muscle Relaxants

Therapeutic muscle relaxants do the same thing as a cosmetic muscle relaxant. It relaxes muscle. It is used to treat medical conditions including migraines, tension headaches, TMJ pain and teeth grinding and hyperhydrosis. Therapeutic muscle relaxants are usually covered by your drug plan for hyperhydrosis, except in the case of Green Shield. Some plans also cover it for treatment of migraines.

Frequently Asked Questions

There have been a few cosmetic products over the years that claim to do what cosmetic muscle relaxants medications do when applied to the skin surface. They simply don't work. One of the main jobs of the skin is to keep things out of your body. These medications are proteins that are too big to get through the skin, so anything that might work to relax muscles won't penetrate through to the muscles below. This is why it must be injected.

Often, patients tell Dr. Elliott about this concern. Don't worry. A well-done muscle relaxing treatment will make you look fresher, more rested and younger. The art in this treatment lies in relaxing overactive facial muscles, while still leaving your face normally animated, with normal expressions. Dr. Elliott and all his staff get regular cosmetic muscle relaxing treatments and you can look at their faces to see what these treatments can do for you.

In the past, these treatments were only available from a physician. Today in many practices, the doctor does not perform the treatment. Although common practice and legal in Alberta and elsewhere, nurse injectors are not used in Dr. Elliott's practice. He performs all cosmetic muscle relaxing treatments personally.

He believes that his patients deserve his skill and experience when having this treatment.

Therapeutic muscle relaxants must be injected into the dermis of the skin in the area to be treated. In Dr. Elliott's practice, this is always done after a topical anesthetic cream has been applied, or with local anesthetic added to the medication. This makes the treatment comfortable. Like with everything Dr. Elliott does, his patients would tell you that it doesn't hurt. He gets this treatment done too!

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