 Botox is a toxic substance produced by bacteria causing food poisoning. At the initial stage, it wasn’t used to reduce the size of facial muscles, but to treat muscle spasm by injection. Later, it has been used to reduce or eliminate creases and wrinkles, and now to correct the square-shaped jaw as an effective treatment.
Botox is a therapeutic agent extracted from an anaerobic toxin named Clostridium Botulinum. It causes muscle paralysis by blocking secretion of acetylcholine which affects neurotransmission to muscles. As unused muscles atrophy, Botox interrupts the movement of facial muscles and later decreases the muscle volume.
When the masticatory muscle used to chew food is excessively developed, lower jaw gets thickened and square-shaped. By Botox injections, masticatory muscle can atrophy and decrease in size.
On this principle, Botox is used to correct angular square-shaped jaw. However, once the muscle is paralyzed, it doesn’t mean the effect will last forever. Temporarily paralyzed muscle will come back to normal due to its reversible nature within 6 to 10 months.
At this time, repeated treatment, by consecutive injection, will keep the muscle from the comeback and bring semi-permanent effects. For medical and aesthetical purpose, a extremely small amount of Botox is used, so it does no harm to human body with very few side effects.
Approved by American Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Botox is being used worldwide including Korea.
Why is the muscle developing?
For the excessive development of masticatory muscle, there are two kinds of factors which are responsible; innate and acquired. Masticatory muscle will develop while you’re growing up and when you use it too much. It is known that acquired factor has a great effect on square-shaped jaw in many cases. For example, when you weigh too much force on your teeth, have a habit of grinding the teeth, or chew tough food like dried squid, or gum, your facial muscles will develop asymmetrically.
• Who is a good candidate for Botox injections?
1. If you have an angular square-shaped jaw due to the development of masticatory muscle
2. If you have fleshy cheeks without protruding jaw bone
3. If you have a large face with slightly protruding jaw bone
4. If you want to have the jaw reduced but mandible osteotomy is ineffective
5. If you want the reduction of masticatory muscle after mandible osteotomy
6. If you don’t want surgical procedure even though osteotomy is required due to protruding mandible
7. If you can’t afford surgical procedure due to surgery cost or recovery period |
 • Who is a bad candidate for Botox inkections?
1. If you are pregnant or nursing, you’d better avoid Botox injections for safety although any side effects haven’t been reported yet.
2. If you have hemophilia or heart disease so take anticoagulant which prevents the clotting of the blood, bleeding around injected location would occur, but this is very rare case.
3. If you take any other medications, you must inform your surgeon of it for safety. |
 Why is the muscle developing?
| For the excessive development of masticatory muscle, there are two kinds of factors which are responsible; innate and acquired. Masticatory muscle will develop while you’re growing up and when you use it too much. It is known that acquired factor has a great effect on square-shaped jaw in many cases. For example, when you weigh too much force on your teeth, have a habit of grinding the teeth, or chew tough food like dried squid, or gum, your facial muscles will develop asymmetrically. |
What to expect after surgery
1. There are hardly any possibilities of swelling or bruising after injection and you can immediately return to the normal life. You may very rarely experience swelling sensation 1 or 2 days after injection but it will be of short duration and disappear.
2. You will realize the effects of Botox injections within a week. When you bite strongly with back teeth, you can feel less stiff and somewhat tender texture of muscle on the jaw.
3. You can immediately see yourself this change of texture before the appearance of your square-shaped jaw is improved with reduced size of muscle. Masticatory muscle which was hard and stiff will be softer even though you weigh much force on it.
4. If you experience this change, it means that Botox is working properly on the muscle and you will see an apparent difference in your face when viewed from the front.
5. Usually, you will see the change of muscle shape gradually for a period of 3 to 8 weeks. When you chew tough food like dried squid within 1 month after injection procedure, you can feel discomfort.
6. You should avoid chewing hard and tough food or gum in order to delay the reversibility of muscle. You don’t need to restore on purpose the muscle that was intentionally paralyzed!
7. Your face will start to become nicely slender a month after injection and continue to diminish in oval shape during a period of 4 to 7 months. Afterwards, the results will depend on how much and hard you use the muscle.
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Botox for wrinkle treatment
Constantly exposed to the sun, skin undergoes various changes due to extrinsic causes. The main extrinsic cause of skin aging is ultraviolet rays, which is called photo-aging, different from natural aging due to the passage of time, an intrinsic cause. Intrinsic aging means skin will be clinically shriveled and atrophied in process of time so that it will lose firmness with fine wrinkles. From the histological point of view, the epidermis which is outer skin gets thinned and the boundary between epidermis and dermis gets flattened, which makes the skin very susceptible to damage. On the other hand, photo-aging will cause stiffened skin with deep creases in addition to nodular lesion, pigmented lesion, blood vessel dilation, etc. Aging is an inevitable physiological change in every part of body in process of time. The reason why skin aging is more apparent than other parts is that more easily exposed to harmful extrinsic causes, skin damage can be easily noticed in appearance.
• What kinds of wrinkles will Botox be effective for?
Botox is effective to remove or reduce laugh lines and fine wrinkles. For severe creases and folds, it is better to inject both Botox and restylane at the same time. In general, Botox is used for the treatment of wrinkles around the eyes, forehead lines, and frown lines as well as wrinkles on the nose, around the upper lip and neck. However, it is not recommendable to treat nasolabial folds, two deep lines that run from each side of the nose to the corners of the mouth because of potential severe paralysis and unbalanced shape of muscle.
- Forehead furrows (horizontal deep creases) and fine wrinkles on the forehead
- Periorbital lines (wrinkles around the eyes and eyelids) and crow’s feet at the corner of eyes when smiling
- Glabella lines (frown lines between the eyebrows due to habitual behavior) and wrinkles on the nose
- Perioral lines (fine wrinkles around the mouth)
- Neck wrinkles due to aging process |
Caution
Pregnant women, nursing women and children under age 14 should avoid the procedure. Anti-inflammatory drugs which can cause bruising should be avoided within 2 weeks after procedure. Do not rub strongly around injected spot after injection, but move gently the muscle in order that Botox can spread out smoothly. You will fix the date of procedure during the consultation and any other particular caution will be required at the day of procedure. Once the date of procedure is fixed, we recommend you to keep it to prevent the diminution in the valid effect of Botox. You can immediately resume normal activities after injection. |
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