People are worried that they’ve become immune to Botox — not that you’d be able to see it on their face.
The wildly popular injectable temporarily reduces or eliminates fine lines and wrinkles and is popularly used to reduce the appearance of frown lines, forehead creases and crow’s feet near the eyes.
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, Botox injections were up 6% year-on-year in 2023.
While generally safe, the jabs could lead to side effects such as bruising and pain, flu-like symptoms, headache, nausea, redness and temporary facial weakness or drooping.
But now, some say they’re experiencing a new side effect: immunity to the injections after getting poked too many times.
That’s a real annoyance when you’re spending $662.20 on average for a treatment — adding up to a whopping $52,976.24 in a lifetime — in Manhattan.
But New York City-based plastic surgeon Dr. Brian Bassiri-Tehrani explained that most patients don’t become immune — but they can become resistant.
He told the Daily Mail that this can happen to people “the more often” they’re “exposed to the product in higher doses.”
“People who will dose or touch up Botox in between the regular three-month sessions might be at risk,” Dr. Bassiri-Tehrani said.
“Another thing that people don’t fully realize about Botox is that once it goes into the neuromuscular junction it binds to the nerve endings that are powering the muscle, and it doesn’t just come off in three months, and everything’s fine. It permanently attaches to those nerve endings, and what happens is new nerve endings go into the muscles.”
“So the reason it wears off in three months isn’t because the Botox disappears. It’s because new nerve endings are now innervating those muscle units, and when they reinnervate the muscle units, they’re not reinnervating the exact same muscle units exactly the same way,” he continued.
He suggests waiting every six months for new nerve endings to take root and heal.
“There’s been a dramatic shift from people viewing these things as a form of cosmetic surgery or a medical thing to a form of grooming,” celebrity cosmetic dermatologist Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank, founder of Manhattan’s PFRANKMD, previously told The Post.
“People look at it as a form of grooming, like getting their hair done, like getting their nails done.”
If there is little to no change in your ability to move the treated muscles after four weeks, you might have developed Botox resistance — where the body produces antibodies to neutralize it.
New York City facialist Jade Haifa Oueslati told the Daily Mail she’s “had clients who, over time, developed immunity to Botox and as a result sought alternative facial treatments to achieve similar outcomes.”
While ‘these treatments do not directly replace Botox, they can provide comparable benefits such as skin tightening, wrinkle reduction, and overall facial rejuvenation.”
She suggests microneedling, buccal facials and using retinoids and Peptides to maintain a youthful glow.
