If you want to delay the aging process, eating a healthy diet, maintaining an active lifestyle, and regularly exercising can all help. But when it comes to lines and wrinkles that have already formed, Botox is an effective option that can minimize their appearance. Because it’s minimally invasive with temporary effects, it can be a safer alternative to other forms of treatment, and we offer it here at East Bay Plastic Surgery in Pleasanton and Danville, CA.
Deciding when to get started with this therapy is a choice only you can make, but it should depend on your aesthetic goals and your reasons for wanting treatment. So while some may prefer to start as early as their 20s, here’s why any age can be ideal and what you can expect when you visit us for treatment.
What Is the Best Age for Getting Botox?
Simply put, there is no age that is more ideal than another when it comes to Botox treatment because everybody has different skincare goals. If you only want to treat your lines and wrinkles when you notice them, then you can take a corrective approach with your treatments and only schedule appointments on an as-needed basis. Many who prefer to take this approach schedule their first appointment in their 30s or 40s, when their lines and wrinkles first become visible.
However, you can also take a more proactive approach at any age by scheduling regular treatment sessions every three to four months to delay some of the signs of aging before they appear. Many prefer to start this preventative approach in their late 20s, just before the usual forehead lines, frown lines, or wrinkles near the eyes develop. But we also have many patients who start preventative treatments at older ages, as these issues will continually appear throughout one’s life.
How Does This Treatment Work?
Muscles play a role in the formation of lines and wrinkles by creasing the skin in certain areas of the face when we make facial expressions. With older age and less collagen production, these creases become permanent lines, and the areas where the muscles contract the most become wrinkles.
Botox therapy can treat both skin conditions by relaxing muscles and stimulating collagen, and each appointment or session normally takes less than ten minutes. Because of its temporary nature, with effects typically lasting around three to four months, it’s a relatively safe and minimally invasive approach to treating aging skin.
What Happens During Treatment?
Just before we start your treatment, we’ll carry out a quick consultation, which allows us to answer your questions, examine your skin, and discuss what your overall goals are, as well as what expectations you have. Understanding your reasons for wanting this treatment helps us to plan out a personalized aesthetic plan for you, so we can target only the areas you’d like treated and with the right amounts of Botox.
After the consultation, we’ll then begin the treatment process. First, we’ll clean the areas to be treated with an alcohol swab or solution before making tiny injections in your skin using a microneedle. This needle is extremely tiny, so you should not feel any significant pain other than some small pricking sensations. This process normally takes ten minutes or less, and there’s no downtime afterward, so you’ll be able to resume your everyday activities as soon as you’re finished.
How Long Will the Effects Last?
You can generally expect the effects of this treatment to last between three to four months after your first injections. With regularly scheduled treatments, this duration may be longer, as some of our patients have reported results lasting as long as six months. This is because your muscles can be trained to relax more easily with Botox, and this can make future treatments more effective.
The skin can also become more supple, as each treatment can stimulate collagen production, leading to smoother skin that wrinkles less easily. Stronger effects can be seen in softer skin because less medication is needed to treat it.
How Can I Make the Results Last Longer?
Many of our patients ask how they can extend the duration of results so that this treatment lasts longer than the average three to four-month time frame. While there is no way to definitively do this, the following things can have an effect in some cases:
Healthy Diet
Maintaining a healthy diet can help extend the results of this treatment by providing the skin with all of the nutrients it needs to stay supple, including zinc, which studies have shown can affect how long the results last.
Quit Smoking
Smoking robs the skin of its soft texture by reducing collagen levels and blocking the circulation of vital nutrients. This leads to deeper lines and larger wrinkles, which can then make it harder for this medication to work effectively.
Reduce Stress
Similar to smoking, stress has a negative effect on the skin by depleting collagen while also tensing muscles. Since this treatment works by relaxing muscles and stimulating collagen, stress can have a negative effect.
Stay Hydrated
By now, you’ve probably heard the advice that you should drink at least eight glasses of water a day to stay healthy. This advice is not just to keep your internal organs healthy, but also your skin. Staying hydrated keeps your skin moisturized, which helps this medication last longer by keeping lines and wrinkles in check.
Avoid Tanning
Sunlight is extremely important for our health because it converts a protein in the skin, 7-DHC, into Vitamin D3, an essential nutrient. But excessive sunlight can have negative effects by damaging the skin. So tanning and excessive sunlight can hamper many of the effects of this therapy and weaken the results.
What Types of Facial Lines Can You Treat?
Botox therapy can be effective in treating a wide variety of skin conditions but is most effective when it comes to expression lines. These are any lines that are caused by facial expressions and which may become more prominent and long-lasting as you get older. All of the following lines and wrinkles can be treated with this therapy in most cases:
Crow’s Feet
Lines that extend outwards from the outer sides of both eyes are called periorbital lines, but most people simply know them as crow’s feet. More commonly seen when smiling, these lines often become more visible when a person is in their late 30s or early 40s.
Forehead Lines
Lines on the forehead that run in a horizontal direction are referred to as stress lines because they can give off the impression that a person is worried or thinking hard about something. These lines are caused by movements of the frontalis muscle, which often responds well to this treatment.
Frown Lines
Vertical lines that run down the face between the eyes and near the lower area of the forehead are known as frown lines, though they are technically called glabellar lines. They can appear more prominently when scrunching the face or frowning but can also become a permanent fixture that can be seen at all times as a person ages.
Bunny Lines
If you’ve ever noticed diagonal lines directly in the center of your nose when making certain facial expressions, these are bunny lines. The nasalis muscle in the nose is responsible for their appearance, and because it’s smaller in size, it can normally be a very easy muscle to treat to diminish their visibility.
Cobblestone Chin
Cobblestone chin, also referred to as golf ball chin or pebble chin, is a condition where the chin takes on a bumpy-looking appearance with some facial expressions, though this can become obvious at any time, even without facial expressions, as a person gets older.
Lipstick Lines
A common sign of aging seen more often in those who are older than 50, lipstick lines, also called perioral lines, can be found just above the upper lip. They appear as vertically-running lines that normally run parallel to each other across the span of this area.
Marionette Lines
If you’re older, you may have lines that extend downward vertically on both sides of your mouth. These are called marionette lines, and while Botox can sometimes be very effective in treating these types of lines, in some cases we may offer other treatments if they’re a bit deeper.
Schedule Your Appointment Today
Botox Therapy is a quick and effective therapy that can revitalize aging skin by boosting collagen and can both minimize and prevent the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. To get started today, contact us at East Bay Plastic Surgery at either of our Pleasanton or Danville, CA locations to schedule an appointment, where we’ll be able to examine any current skin issues you have while creating a treatment plan that’s personalized to your skincare goals.