Researchers have found that treating a facial wound early on with botulinum toxin (BOTOX) can improve the appearance of the resulting scar.
The process could work both on new wounds and on unsightly older scars, if the scar is surgically removed and botulinum toxin is injected into the newly created wound area.
Facial scars can interfere with eye closure, talking and eating, and can also have damaging psychological impact.
Paralyzing the Wound Area
The botulinum toxin paralyzes the region around the wound, preventing muscle movement from wrinkling the wound site. This creates a flat surface for healing and leaves a smoother final scar. Current techniques to reduce the effects of muscle tension on a wound include special stitches and local flaps that bring additional skin into the wound area.
Rated on a Scale of 0 to 10
More than 30 patients with forehead wounds, a frequent site of facial scarring, were treated either with botulinum toxin or with saline, a harmless substance used for comparison. After the wounds healed, two experienced facial plastic surgeons rated the results on a scale of 0 to 10 without knowing which patient received which treatment. The median score for wounds injected with botulinum toxin was 8.9, while the median score was 7.1 for those injected with saline.
The Next Step
The next step in the research will be to conduct a trial with hundreds of patients to determine appropriate dosage, and to discover whether the injections are useful for better healing scars elsewhere on the body, such as heart surgery wounds.
Cosmetic surgery is a growing business in the United States; men and women between the ages of 35 and 50 spent $20 billion in plastic surgery and non-surgery skin treatments in 2003 alone.
Once the botulinum toxin, better known as BOTOX, became the go-to remedy for wrinkles and hyperhidrosis, it was only a matter of time before conventional medicine would find new and potentially dangerous ways to justify using it.
The next stage phase of this research concerns me the most; scientists will work with patients to determine the right dosage of BOTOX to treat scars left behind after heart surgery. Would you want to be injected with BOTOX in your chest?
No one wants unsightly scars, and if your goal is simply to look better, cosmetic surgery and BOTOX injections will certainly give you what you want -- but by doing so you run the risk of surgical errors or side effects. Of course, this did not stop Americans from getting 7 million cosmetic procedures in 2002. But if you want to both look AND feel your best, I recommend safer, natural methods that don't carry the risks.
It is unclear from this study if the BOTOX needs to be used recurrently every few months to maintain the benefit. Typically when it is used in other plastic surgical procedures it needs to be used every few months to maintain the improvement.
Most surgeons are not aware that there is a simple and inexpensive solution that is permanent and can easily be used in place of BOTOX. That option is preservative-free procaine or lidocaine that can typically be ordered from a compounding pharmacist.
This local anesthetic is injected in the skin prior to the incision. Once done the procaine or lidocaine improves the physiology of healing and virtually eliminates the risk of scarring. I have used this for many patients with excellent results.
You can also access the real "fountain of youth" with a healthy diet that reduces your insulin level. Insulin is the major accelerant of aging, and you can keep your insulin levels down by reducing or eliminating grains and sugar in your diet.
Vegetables are also extremely important. One of the reasons I started vegetable juicing is that I would see 75-year-old women in my practice who looked like they were 40 years old and had virtually no facial wrinkles. For optimal results you will want to adjust the amount you juice, along with what types of vegetables you use, depending on your nutritional type.
You will also want to be sure that your diet includes plenty of raw food, including raw dairy, as this is another of the central keys to avoiding the surgeon's knife and regaining the lost beauty of youth.
Other keys include regular exercise, getting a good night's sleep, and properly addressing emotional stresses. One of the best ways to address emotional challenges is with psychological acupressure techniques like EFT.