Anti-Wrinkle Injections
Dr Halfhide has 25 years experience in Botox and Filler treatments, used for full face rejuvenation. Most commonly used for wrinkles in the forehead, between the eyebrows (frown lines) and crow’s feet; additionally botox is helpful for bunny wrinkles of the nose, lipstick (sometimes called smoker’s) lines, marionette lines and down turned corners of mouth (‘twenty past four smile’), gummy smile, bobbly chin, and neck lines. Botox can also be used to treat headaches, grinding teeth/ jaw clenching, slimming of the cheeks, and excessive sweating.
Forehead lines
Crows Feet
Frown lines
25 years of prevention! This patient has been with me from the beginning and through safely using anti-wrinkle injections she has successfully prevented the signs of ageing. These photos are taken 20+ years apart. WOW!
Botulinum Toxin (Botox)
Isn’t it a poison?
The short answer is no. For any substance to be poisonous it has to be ingested in sufficient quantities to cause harm. The doses used in cosmetic treatment are incredibly small: if it was laid out on a glass table in front of you it is unlikely you could even see it!
Ingesting 10 times the botulinum toxin dose used in a cosmetic treatment would cause a person no harm whatsoever. By contrast ingesting 10 times your essential daily requirement of water would definitely harm you (fits, kidney failure, coma etc etc). Dose for dose one could argue that Botox is safer than water!
What is Botox?
Botulinum toxin is simply a protein, more usually known as Botox.
Frequently asked questions
Isn’t the Practitioner important too?
Very much so! Botulinum toxin side-effects are largely down to the individual in front of you who is holding the syringe and not the botulinum toxin itself, so choose your provider carefully.
People find it hard to believe that the use of botulinum toxin is poorly regulated in the UK; it is a prescription medicine and under prescribing legislation the prescriber has a professional duty to carry out a face to face consultation with a patient before prescribing. Sadly the enforcement of this legislation in the UK is weak, almost non-existent, meaning that many patients in the UK receive injections from people who have limited training (such as a one day course!) and have got hold of botulinum toxin from a prescriber who has not conducted a face to face consultation and is thus breaching the Statutory prescribing guidelines of Good Medical Practice. Would you want to have your face injected by someone who obtains botulinum toxin from a practitioner prepared to flout Statutory prescribing guidelines? And after a one day training course?
It’s Natural
Strictly and scientifically speaking, Botulinim toxin is natural: it is a protein produced by a bacterium Clostridium botulinum and has been in existence since the dawn of bacteria themselves. Quite unlike the majority of food additives (insecticides, fertilisers, preservatives, flavourings, colourings etc.) that we all consume daily in the food chain, Botulinum toxin is far more scientifically studied and much more thoroughly understood than those food additives; and in the decades of research and clinical practice it is proven to be very safe.
How can we be so sure of its safety?
Therapeutic use of botulinum toxin is not new, it has been used in medicine since the 1970’s. In fact there is hardly a medical discipline from Urology to Ophthalmology to Gastroenterology to Dermatology … that has not been using it for decades. In Neurology it has been used in cerebral palsy patients at doses much, much larger than cosmetic doses, since the 1980’s, with no long term ill-effects.
Dose for dose safer than water, long term safety data at much larger than used cosmetic doses … it is hard to think of a medicine in the entire British National Formulary of prescription medicines that is so effective whilst at the same time also being so safe!