These injectable neurotoxins temporarily block nerve signals to muscles to prevent them from contracting.
There’s no established definition for baby Botox, says a board-certified dermatologist Noëlle Sherber, MD, a clinical associate professor of dermatology at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and co-founder of the dermatology and plastic surgery practice Sherber+Rad, both in in Washington, D.C.
But Botox and baby Botox are essentially the same, with a few key differences.
Preventive Botox, on the other hand, is best for those who are just noticing lines and wrinkles start to form, Dr. Yadav says.
“If preventive Botox patients have wrinkles at all, they’re dynamic wrinkles (wrinkles that appear when making facial expressions) rather than static wrinkles (wrinkles that appear even when the face is at rest),” Yadav says.
The other difference between traditional and baby Botox is that the latter involves administering much lower doses to a specific muscle, rather than to a general area of your face.
Botox is measured in units, a specific measure of potency. While a regular Botox injection uses about 40 units for the forehead and frown lines, an average baby Botox treatment only uses about 10 units through hyper-localized micro-injections.
The following are some examples of typical preventive Botox injection sites and the average number of units used:
- Forehead lines: 10 to 30 units
- Lips: 2 to 4 units
- Around the lips: 3 to 6 units
- Brow area: 2 to 5 units
“With that being said, individuals respond differently, so someone might need more or fewer units,” Dr. Sherber says.
However, she says that it can vary depending on factors such as muscle strength, movement habits, and a patient’s goals. “It may be that, for prevention, treatment every six to eight months is enough to keep the muscle relaxed,” Dr. Gmyrek adds.
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