Category Archives: Did You Know?

Different Types of Botox

Botulinum toxin type A, known commercially as Botox, has had a number of therapeutic applications over the past 20 years. It’s been used for treatment of migraines, overactive bladders, excessive sweating, and cardiac conditions. Botulinum toxin Type A, as we know, is a neurotoxic protein with the ability to remove wrinkles yet cause food poisoning. Derived from Clostridium botulinum and its relatives, this protein is often found in soil and untreated water.

This time a new source of the botulinum neurotoxin was discovered, the first time that an active botulinum toxin has been identified outside of Clostridium botulinum and its cluster. Canadian and American scientists found it in a strain of animal gut bacteria known as Enterococcus faecium.

This has implications in several fields, from emergence of new pathogens to the development of new protein to be used in therapeutics. The discovery came out of the University of Waterloo, Ontario, and Harvard University and the Boston Children’s Hospital.

Originally, the study was about investigating why there is antibiotic resistance in Enterococcus faecium. The species can be both friendly and harmful. It can coexist with other bacteria in human and animal gut and can also be pathogenic, causing diseases such as neonatal meningitis or endocarditis. If disease-causing, the bacterium is very difficult to eradicate as it has capabilities to mutate, causing multidrug antibiotic resistance. It has its own genome sequencing or DNA sequencing that can make science better understand how it develops and maintains.

In this study, the researchers were able to sequence the genome of the E. faecium bacteria that came from cow feces, and when run through computer programs in the lab, they found the gene for botulinum toxin in the bacterial strain. It must have been likely transferred from C. botulinum bacteria in the environment into the E. faecium bacteria in the cow’s gut, showing that the toxin can be transferred between very different species. More studies are needed to expand the usage of this strain of botulinum toxin, now confirmed to be a powerful and versatile protein therapeutic, and there might be more versions of the toxin in nature.

Seeing More Applications of Botox in the Future

The Botox strain is indeed a powerful and versatile species, with still more undiscovered therapeutic benefits. The future looks bright for Botox and our staff at Botixue in Tacoma are just as excited about future developments.

Botox Treatment After Facial Surgery?

If you are to undergo a reconstructive surgery of the face, it is not unusual to worry about possible facial scarring. If it happens, what are you to do? Comes now a welcome solution out of a clinical trial published in the issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The study claims that with botox or botulinum toxin A (BTX-A), the compound known as an anti-wrinkle treatment, can help improve the appearance of facial surgical scars.

According to ASPS statistics, Botox treatment is the most common cosmetic procedure in the US with about 7 million such procedures performed in 2016 alone. This new study may very well add to BTX-A’s many clinical applications beyond its cosmetic use in treating facial lines and wrinkles. This study shows that early post-surgical botulinum toxin injections can produce better, narrower, and flatter facial surgical scars.

The study is quite small. Over a four-month duration, 16 patients underwent facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. Patients averaged 12 years of age for surgery of some type of disfiguring facial birthmark, such as a melanocytic nevus or port wine stain. In each patient, half of the facial scar was randomly assigned to treatment with BTX-A or inactive saline (placebo) solution, injected immediately at the end of surgery.

What role did BTX-A play in the process of scar formation?

Botox induced temporary muscular paralysis that decrease movement and stress around a healing wound, it was speculated. In the absence of tension, facial scars did not widen, and prevented hypertrophy and hyperpigmentation. Previous studies also have suggested that BTX-A might inhibit fibroblast and mediators involved in scar formation. While it’s good news, this study has its limitation and needs further conclusive research.

The Go-To Place for Botox in Tacoma

Over at Botixue in Tacoma, we use the widely accepted and approved indications of Botox. However, it’s great that another beneficial indication is in the works.

Botox Injections to the Scalp?

Don’t women want to work out in the gym and still have their alluring, blown-out hair style on? Or don’t women want to keep their salon-treated blow dry hair for longer at the office without worrying that they have to blow dry again and again? According to Us Weekly, there’s this beauty trend that will keep your style longer. What is just needed are Botox injections to the scalp.

It’s called ‘Blotox’, a procedure that requires about 200 Botox injections carefully placed under the hair follicles. It will prevent nerve endings from connecting to the eccrine glands, the glands responsible for sweat. Hence, if you will not sweat, you will not ruin your blow dry.

While Botox has been FDA-approved for treating crow’s feet, forehead and frown lines, dermatologists and beauty experts have been using it off-label for years in various application places. When performed by board certified specialists, these off-label applications can be safe and effective procedures. And as with all Botox treatments, the results wear off in about six months. Keeping your scalp free of sweat for some indeterminate amount of time, you’ve got to maintain the treatments.

This can be a busy body’s or a working woman’s dream come true. In spite of the grueling hours at the gym or an 8-hour office job and a date afterwards, people will have to worry less about sweat. With Botox-treated scalp, even kinky or curly hair that’s been blow-dried will remain straight longer.

Injecting the needle 200 times into your scalp may sound painful, or at least daunting, but the effort will only leave a tingling sensation in a 20 minute or so procedure.
Of course there are other less expensive and less daunting alternatives to Blotox – such as shampooing less frequently or using dry shampoos. But if you’re for Blotox, you are saving more time and effort, if not money, looking great all the time.

Benefits of Lip Fillers Over Surgical Implants

Lip Augmentation is one of the most popular cosmetic procedures today. It restores volume to thin lips and reduces the appearance of lipstick lines by filling age-related creasing along the lip border. It restores the lips’ texture and smoothness.

What is a good candidate for lip augmentation? Most women are good candidates for the procedure. If you want fuller, luscious lips because of thin lips, or if you wish to make your lip creases less noticeable because of age or because of smoking you can opt for augmentation. This can be done through surgical means or if you would rather skip the surgery, fillers like Juvederm are a good choice. Some desire a more permanent lip augmentation solution to create their ideal look.

Injectable dermal fillers are a more popular choice over surgery for a variety of reasons. They carry a number of benefits that most patients find attractive.

Firstly, most injectable treatments are simple procedures, taking just an hour to complete, but permanent lip implant surgery may require several hours. The surgery will require anesthesia as small incisions will be made on the lips. Fillers may require a small amount of anesthetic, too, though incisions are not called for.

There will be less bruising, swelling and fewer side effects with lip fillers. On the other hand, lip implants can cause mild discomfort, or swelling following the procedure. There is a need to return to your doctor to remove the stitches. Patients are usually advised to use ice packs during the first 24 hours after the procedure.

Because lip fillers are minimally invasive procedures, there is less downtime for patients. They recover easily and return to normal routine without problems. Lip implants through surgery can expect to recover in a week’s time.

Lip augmentation via fillers offer a temporary solution to patients who are not yet ready to commit to a permanent solution, as lip implants. They may wish to experiment first before deciding on surgery. If you had fillers, which effects can last several months, follow-up visits are necessary to maintain the results.

Bringing Back the Youth of Lips in Tacoma

Lip fillers are a safe way to enhance the volume, contour, definition and overall shape of your lips for a fresh, exciting look. Consult with us at Botixue in Tacoma and have the lips you’ve always wanted.

The Botox Benefits for Medical Conditions

Did you know that Botox has several approved indications that cosmetic clinics and some TV makeover shows don’t find necessary to talk about? After all, it’s already the No. 1 non-surgical beauty treatment in the country. Let’s look at some of these indications.

Botox is used to treat overactive bladder symptoms such as a strong need to urinate with leaking or wetting accidents (urge urinary incontinence), a strong need to urinate right away (urgency), and urinating often (frequency) in adults 18 years and older when other drugs, as anticholinergics, do not work well or cannot be taken. It is also indicated for incontinence in adults 18 years and older with overactive bladder due to neurologic disease or who cannot tolerate the side effects of anticholinergic medication.

Botox is used to prevent headaches in adults with chronic migraine who have 15 or more days each month with headache lasting 4 or more hours each day in people 18 years or older.

Botox is used to treat increased muscle stiffness in elbow, wrist, and finger muscles in people 18 years and older with upper limb spasticity. However, it is not known whether botox is safe or effective to treat increased stiffness in upper-limb muscles other than those in the elbow, wrist, and fingers, or to treat increased stiffness in lower limb muscles.

Botox is used to treat the abnormal head position and neck pain that happens with cervical dystonia (CD) in people 16 years and older.

Botox is indicated to treat certain types of eye muscle problems (strabismus) or abnormal spasm of the eyelids (blepharospasm) in people 12 years and older.

BOTOX is also injected into the skin to treat the symptoms of severe underarm sweating (severe primary axillary hyperhidrosis) when medicines used on the skin (topical) do not work well enough in people 18 years and older. However, it is not known whether it is safe or effective for severe sweating anywhere other than your armpits.

Not Just a Beauty Treatment

Know more about the wonders of Botox at Tacoma’s Botixue. While our expertise is in the cosmetic benefit of Botox treatments, you can always ask us, or ask your physician about it’s other indications.