Botox Off-Label Uses: Anti Aging

When you buy Botox for treating your patient’s facial lines, remember that while the FDA has only approved the cosmetic use of Botox for treating eyebrow furrows, doctors have been successfully administering Botox for treating a number of other cosmetic problems, including crow’s feet, forehead lines, crepey necks and even sagging breasts.

Botox is injected into the facial muscles that create dynamic wrinkles – those formed over time by repeatedly frowning, raising the eyebrows, smiling, or squinting. Some doctors also use Botox to treat wrinkle around the mouth. The injections work by temporarily paralyzing these muscles.

Botox is not effective against other types of wrinkles, including wrinkles caused by heredity, smoking, sun exposure, and the effects of gravity. Other methods, including injecting dermal fillers such as Juvederm and Restylane, may work better to treat some of these conditions.

Off-label use of Botox is possible – and legal – because FDA-approved drugs can be used by licensed doctors off-label according to their best judgment. That includes using those drugs for indications other than the ones that led to FDA approval.

However, when you buy Botox for cosmetic off-label use, it’s important to use it responsively. When you administer Botox to treat a wrinkled forehead, crow’s-feet, the mouth area, and bands in the neck, your patient is exposed to higher doses of Botox than those in the studies that led to the FDA approval. Make sure you are conservative with your doses, and ask your patient to focus on the areas that bother her the most instead of tackling everything in one session.

Of course, when you buy Botox for any cosmetic use, you should also remind your patients that just like any medical procedure, Botox is not without risk, although complications are almost always mild and temporary.

Many doctors believe that it’s just a matter of time until the FDA approves Botox for some of the most successful off-label uses such as smoothing forehead lines. Until then, when you buy Botox for off-label uses, use your best judgment and remember that with conservative, correct use of Botox, you can make a real, positive difference in your patient’s self confidence and save them the high cost and risks of surgery.