Should the new me — tan, blonde, and fun — get not only filler, but botox as well? It might seem strange for a 30-year-old who doesn’t even have a line or wrinkle at rest…but then I start reading up on “preventive botox”, and I’m sold on the idea faster than you can say “surf’s up!”.
I so love my filler; just the loss of facial volume and the sagging of what I had left at age 29 made me feel so depressed, both physically and psychologically, like a weight was pressing down my expression and my very being…and it turned out that was literally what was happening to me! My nasiolabial folds had developed these incipient hideous lines that showed me the first sign in the mirror of what my face would look like when I started aging…and I really hated it. Much more so than I ever anticipated when I was still young enough not to need a little bit of help from modern biotechnology.
Lucky me, a few syringes worth of dermal filler cured me, but it tells me that I’m a carbon-copy of my aunt in more ways than just sharing all the same allergies: she was actually one of the first customers of botox when it became available in her area…despite the fact she wasn’t even 40 at the time and only had slight aging lines at that point. Back then that was a bit outré, but now that sort of treatment is much more mainstream in the form of “preventive botox”.
The way I heard about it in the family and the way I heard about what all these fashion models and actresses have done, I always assumed that was the standard treatment protocol these days: to inject botox to counter wrinkles and lines as soon as they form, no matter how slight. But nope! The traditional and still-standard doctrine envisages botox treatment only when wrinkles and lines become moderate to severe. Madness! It’s much easier to stop the lines and wrinkles from sinking their teeth into you to begin with than it is to try to reverse them wholesale after they’ve already become entrenched for years on end. Apparently that’s what “preventive botox” is, and it’s still considered a cutting-edge and slightly controversial therapy. Huh.
To my way of thinking if you already have lines and wrinkles, no matter how slight, that’s not really “prevention”, in as much as it’s treating a malady that’s already presenting itself, albeit in the very early stages. So I was left confused for a bit when I looked it up recently.
Like, I was under the impression that “prevention” envisages injecting botox before the fine lines and wrinkles become visible in the sites where they will occur if left untreated. Apparently that’s considerably more cutting-edge than just injecting botox at the first sign of lines or wrinkles…and less common. My information indicates it can be done, however. Ooh…
One might think that without even early signs of lines or wrinkles, the provider wouldn’t know where to inject the botox, but that neglects the fact that lines start to appear under stress long before they are retained by the face at rest; in other words, the folds and creases in your face when you’re upset that disappear when you get over it are a preview of what you’ll look like when you get older. Family history can also be used; aging patterns are largely inherited, so e.g. where your parents developed lines in their forties can be used as a guide to where to inject botox into your face in your twenties.
Obviously that demands a more skilled injector at a more sophisticated practice than what you’ll find at your everyday aesthetic clinic in a podunk city, but lucky me, I’m moving to Greater Los Angeles: if you can’t find a cosmetic treatment there that’ll give you gorgeous results, chances are it doesn’t exist. Hollywood leads the world in the art and science of beauty.
So should I take the plunge and follow the legions of models who are getting preventive botox? Maybe. In any case I’m absolutely sold on the version of “preventive botox” where you inject it at the first sign of a line or a wrinkle you see on your face. When that day comes, I’m not waiting; I’m scheduling myself an appointment immediately.
Curiously enough, my family don’t tend to get lines or wrinkles; in some cases in my family history barely any wrinkles or lines showed up even into the fifties. Alas, my genetics aren’t so fortunate when it comes to sagging of volume in the face; in that regard my family tends to suffer from that in about an average fashion, as far as the timing and severity of that issue goes. I’m no exception; my nurse practitioner if anything said my facial volume was in somewhat better shape than the average person in their late twenties, but overall my situation was rather typical.
My reaction to that situation? That was on the extreme end of negative, but since it’s a fixable issue in this day and age, who cares? Even now, well over a year after my first treatment and several months after my second treatment to top it up, I just melt in my heart whenever I hold my cheeks in my hand, they’re so supple and fulsome, exactly the way they should be on me. Youthful and fun, inside and out.
When I got my filler my nurse practitioner pointed out that I’m not a candidate for botox…which makes sense, considering that I don’t have even the slightest lines or wrinkles. But I can’t help but wonder if injecting the botox before the wrinkles and lines even appear on me might be beneficial; perhaps she just doesn’t believe in the preventive botox concept, or perhaps that’s just not a service she offers. Another clinic that’s more sophisticated might have a different perspective; should I look into consulting with one when I move into an area where such practices are more abundant? Maybe.
The before-and-after results I see online with these sort of botox regimens, in cases where the patients didn’t have any visible wrinkles or lines at rest…honestly, they don’t impress me (certainly not as much as dermal filler did), but I once again find it intriguing. The results are subtle, but injecting botox in this fashion does seem to relax the face all over when at rest, leading to a more serene expression, the sort of dreamy look that might actually suit a person well who wants to seem light, fun, and happy all the time, like I do. Again, it’s subtle, but it’s there.
And preventive botox has been injected into so many twentysomething and teenage models for long enough that we can see the results over quite a few years’ worth of aging, and although it’s hard to tease out the effects of preventive botox from all the other treatments these people get, my impression is it actually is effective at keeping the face looking young for substantially longer than would otherwise be the case. Young as in completely young: not even the slightest line, the slightest wrinkle, or that slightly dumpy look that’s the tell-tale glow-down before aging starts to become obvious even upon close examination.
Obviously there’s only so much botox can do; past a certain point of paralyzing the muscles you can’t express your face anymore in a normal fashion, the muscles cause facial features to droop in off-putting ways, and you start to not even look human anymore. But the amount of botox a younger person would ever be using is well short of that point; unlike the older people who so much more desperately seek it and want it, for younger people in my age bracket botox really can completely reverse the maladies of age. My impression is it’s even more effective when it’s preventing the maladies of age.
So why not just get that done for myself? Well…one reason is the cost. My cursory research online suggests it’s $400 to $700 per treatment for preventive doses of botox, and it needs to be repeated about once a year if you want to experience the results of it over the long haul. There’s also the body’s reaction to the treatment and the risk of some of the nastier side effects.
But I’m already spending on the order of $2000 every year on dermal filler for my face, and frankly I could afford to spend an extra $1000 a year if I wanted to. Side effects? My aunt had all the same allergies and so forth as I do and she never had any nasty side effects from botox; and for what it’s worth my body seems to love dermal filler (go figure). My reaction to the treatments I’ve gotten in my face so far (not just filler, but PRF as well for my under-eye area) has been easy. So I’d be surprised if the botox was any different.
No, the real obstacle for me at this time is the psychological toll of spending the time and effort to locate a good provider, scheduling a consultation, going to it, experiencing the downtime from the treatment, and all that good stuff. When I already need to find another good provider for my filler treatments and hunt down a top-in-the-world hair salon for my platinum blonde transformation. Not to mention a tanning salon for me to look and feel my best in my new beachy lifestyle. So right now…maybe not. Maybe leave exploring that on the shelf.
Nevertheless, I’m not going back on my total commitment to maxing out my looks and being the most beautiful me I can be in my new life. Not at least exploring preventive botox to the fullest feels like betraying my goals for how I want to be in the future, and I’m not even dreaming of doing that. So after I take care of several upcoming aspects of my makeover, I suspect you might be hearing more from me about botox…