Some people say that expression lines are evidence of your happy memories and all the times you have smiled throughout your life. But some of us don’t want those memories etched on our faces; we’d rather remember our happy memories than see them in the mirror. If you have expression lines that you’d rather forget, we can help. At Prizant Dermatology in Pittsburgh, PA, we offer different neurotoxins that can help erase your expression lines.
In a quick and virtually painless treatment, you can treat your expression lines so that you can look and feel more like your younger self again. You’ll no longer have to see those expression lines when you look in the mirror but instead will see your youthful, natural, and well-rested-looking self staring back at you.
What Are Neurotoxins?
Neurotoxins are cosmetic injectables that relax the muscles in the upper half of the face to help smooth expression lines. Expression lines become etched in the skin as you age because, with the aging process, the skin loses elasticity. You keep expressing, but those expression lines begin to remain on your face and become part of your features, even when your face is at rest. Neurotoxins can help erase these lines to restore youth to the skin.
How Do They Work?
Whenever you smile, frown, laugh, squint, or raise your eyebrows, your skin is forced into expressions. Expressions in and of themselves aren’t bad. Expressions communicate emotion, but some of us don’t want expression lines to define our faces, which is where neurotoxins come in. Neurotoxins help relax the facial muscles by blocking communication between the nerve signals and the brain.
When the nerve signals can’t instruct the muscles to move, the muscles stay relaxed, and you’re left with a well-rested and more youthful appearance. You can still move those muscles, but those expressions won’t be as exaggerated as they used to be. After undergoing treatment, you’ll have fewer lines and wrinkles. In some cases, those lines and wrinkles will disappear entirely.
Our Wrinkle-Relaxing Injectables
At Prizant Dermatology, we offer three different neurotoxins: Botox, Jeuveau, and Xeomin. The benefit of offering our patients the option of three different cosmetic injectables is that we can help meet the needs of different patients. Some patients cannot achieve their desired results from one of these cosmetic injectables and need an alternative option.
We are proud to offer three of the most effective wrinkle relaxing injectables in the beauty world to help treat your expression lines. These cosmetic injectables are FDA-approved to safely smooth lines and wrinkles that form on the upper half of the face.
Botox
Botox is one of the original cosmetic injectables designed to smooth wrinkles on the upper half of the face. It’s become a household name, and almost everyone knows what it is, even if they’ve never used it. This injectable is FDA approved to help smooth wrinkles on the forehead, outer corners of the eyes, and in between eyebrows. It treats forehead lines, frown lines, and crow’s feet in a way that helps you achieve natural-looking results.
This injectable has been helping patients achieve a wrinkle-free appearance since 2002 and continues to be one of the most popular cosmetic injectables in the beauty world. It delivers results that typically last three to six months based on the rate at which your body metabolizes its ingredients, and results appear within seven to ten days of an initial injection.
Jeuveau
Jeuveau is a wrinkle-relaxing cosmetic injectable designed to relax wrinkles by relaxing the muscles that contract and cause dynamic wrinkles to form on the skin. Jeuveau was introduced to the beauty world in 2019 and is an effective choice for those who want an alternative to Botox to treat their problem areas.
It has become a popular injectable among younger patients and has a very similar formula to Botox. It’s an effective way to smooth expression lines for months at a time.
Xeomin
Xeomin has been used in the beauty world for ten years to treat crow’s feet at the outer corners of the eyes. These lines form from squinting, laughing, and smiling. Since the area around the eyes has delicate skin, lines and wrinkles can quickly begin to form with the aging process.
Your eyes can start to develop crow’s feet even if you’re in your 20s. When you notice these lines, you need a solution, and Xeomin is an effective option. It is also the perfect injectable to treat frown lines that appear between your eyebrows.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are These Injectables Safe?
All of these injectables have been studied and proven to be a safe way to treat expression lines. If the word toxin and makes you nervous, you needn’t be. These injectables contain highly purified proteins that simply block the communication between the nerve signals and the muscles.
It isn’t the type of toxin that you want to eliminate during a detox. It’s a safe way to treat wrinkles, and while the results are long-lasting, they’re not permanent. Your body will metabolize the ingredients, and follow-up treatments will be needed to maintain results.
How Long Do Treatments Take?
The treatment process for each of these injectables is quick. Injections only take 10 to 20 minutes to administer. You can schedule your treatments during your lunch break or at a time that works best for your schedule, and you won’t have to worry about your appointment monopolizing a significant portion of your day.
How Long Do Results Last?
Each of these injectables lasts approximately three to four months on average. Some patients experience results that last for longer than four months. Some factors can affect the rate at which your body metabolizes the injectable ingredients, including excessive exercise.
Patients who run marathons or engage in strenuous workouts regularly often notice that their results only last three months. This isn’t a bad thing; it’s just a part of their treatment that they must consider in order to maintain consistent results.
What Happens During the Treatment?
Once we determine which one of these injectables is right for you, we will determine the best dosage to help meet your needs. Then, one of our injectors will clean your skin in the treatment area and then administer the injections. The process is quick and virtually painless because each injectable has a very thin needle designed to inject quickly into the skin; you will barely feel a thing.
Is There Any Downtime?
There is no downtime associated with any of these injectables. You can get back to your daily routine after your appointment, but you will need to be mindful of your treatment sites to avoid negatively affecting your results.
You need to avoid strenuous workouts for 24 hours post-treatment and anything that increases your body temperature like hot tubs, laying out in the sun, hot yoga, steam rooms, or saunas. Your injector will give you detailed instructions on how to care for your treatment sites, what to avoid, and how to best care for your skin.
Am I a Candidate?
The best candidates for wrinkle-relaxing injectables are patients with moderate to severe expression lines on their faces. An initial consultation with one of our injectors will help determine that you aren’t allergic to any of the ingredients in the injectables. Once we can confirm that one of these injectables is right for you, we’ll design your treatment plan and tell you how many units we will use to treat your problem areas.
Smooth Away Your Expression Lines
You don’t have to live with expression lines. Thanks to Botox, Xeomin, and Jeaveua, there are ways to smooth those lines and restore youth to your appearance and your skin. Contact us today at Prizant Dermatology in Pittsburgh, PA, to schedule your initial consultation so we can help you determine which of these injectables can meet your needs.