Botox Patient » Allergan

Botox Mistakes You Should Avoid

Botox Patient — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:40:35 +0000

Here’s an update to The Insider’s Guide that we are creating.

We just decided to include a discussion of issues that should be considered as Botox no-no’s. A common denominator among these types of issues is the desire to avoid paying the high cost of Botox treatments. Sadly, money, or a feeling of lack thereof, can really drive people to make unwise decisions. We’re hoping that this Guide will protect women from unscrupulous individuals and, maybe, even from themselves, by giving them the information needed to make smart choices.

Here are a couple of issues that we might tackle in The Guide.

Do-It-Yourself Botox treatments

A lot of controversy was stirred by the arrest of Laurie D’Alleva. Suddenly, the issue of Do-It-Yourself Botox treatments was shoved into the spotlight. I know that there are individuals out there who believe that Laurie was doing the common person a great service by giving them access to cheaper cosmetic medicine. But, please be wary of distributors, online or otherwise, who allow you to purchase prescription medicine, such as Botox, without a prescription. The FDA has regulated these drugs for several reasons – most important of which is your safety. A lot of people seem to overlook the matter of health just to be able to save some money but, as some of the victims of Discount MedSpa admit, reversing the effects of their DIY treatments are causing a much bigger dent on their bank accounts.

Fake Botox

Most of the bad press associated with Botox actually pertain to instances where Fake Botox was used irresponsibly. You may have heard of the Houston physician who was sentenced to prison for using industrial strength Botox on her patients. The drug she used was labeled “FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY, NOT FOR HUMAN USE” and yet she still injected some 170 of her patients with it. Botox, despite being derived from a neurotoxin, is really a safe drug – but this comes with several precautions such as using only the FDA approved version produced by Allergan and proper administration by experienced medical practitioners. When a person chooses to cut corners and find cheaper alternatives without regard to possible repercussions, you just know that things are bound to get ugly – and with Botox in the equation, ugly might just be right on the money.

I know that deciding to undergo any medical procedure requires giving your physician a little bit of faith but that doesn’t mean that you have to go through the process blindfolded.

The inclusion of a section that discusses these issues in The Guide is made with the hope that we will be making more women think twice about latching on to super-saver deals like these. We’ll also give you some tips on avoiding Botox pitfalls such as how to choose your physician, what to ask during your consultation and even how to check if the Botox that will be used is the real deal.

I hope this is getting to be as exciting for you as it is for us!

Botox Mistakes You Should Avoid is a post from: Botox Patient

Common Botox Safety Concerns

Botox Patient — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:36:40 +0000

Botox, like every other word, has an etymology that can tell you so much about what the word denotes.

Most people overlook the fact that Botox is the brand name that Allergan gave the drug it manufactures for the treatment of wrinkles. This commercial name is actually a contraction of the words Botulinum Toxin from which the drug is derived.

BOTOX = BOtulinum TOXin

Let us now deal with the 2 main words involved:

Bot·u·li·num* (n): a spore-forming bacterium that secretes Botulinum Toxin. [From the German word "Botulismus"; coined from the Latin term "Botulus" which means sausage. The word 'sausage' is a depiction of the shape of Clostridium Botulinum, the bacteria that produces the toxin]
Tox·in* (n): a poisonous substance… usually very unstable, notably toxic when introduced into the tissues… [From the Latin term “Toxicum” which means poison]

Bacterium. Poison.

The two main words associated with Botox involve things that people usually stay far away from. No wonder most women’s primary concern is the safety of using Botox!

The Insider’s Guide that we are currently creating will include a section that will delve into the safety issues commonly associated with Botox treatments such as:

Is it safe? If so, how?
Important things you need to know to do Botox safely
How things can go wrong in a Botox treatment and how to avoid them
Possible side effects and measures you can take to prevent them from occurring
Botox pitfalls that you should avoid at all costs

We’re hoping that tackling this issue head on will give you the answers to common questions you may have regarding the safety of using Botox. The ultimate goal is to give you eveything you will need to make smart choices every step of the way.

*definition from merriam-webster online

Common Botox Safety Concerns is a post from: Botox Patient

The Truth About How Botox Works

Botox Patient — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:35:38 +0000

What exactly does Botox do?

One of our goals for this Guide is to give you an accurate description of how Botox works. Of course before you can decide that a Botox treatment will work for you, you have to know how the drug works.

A simple google search on the topic will give you the impression that the research is easy enough – and it actually is. Well, at least until you come across a site that says something different. Then you question which of the two possibilities is correct.

Here’s what most of the sites say: Botox blocks the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine which is the muscle’s signal to contract. Even the pictures available online all illustrate this cause and effect scenario. The common visual interpretation depicts Botox as encircling little spheres in the nerve ending that contain the acetylcholine. By virtue of such encircling, Botox prevents the release of the neurotransmitter and the muscle does not receive its signal to contract. No muscle contractions mean reduction in wrinkles. This explanation puts forward the theory that what is affected is the function in the nerve ending.

Now, here is what the dissenting website had to say: the function of Botox is to prevent the receptors on the side of the muscle from recognizing the acetylcholine – which means that the neurotransmitter is still released but the muscle receptors cannot recognize the signal. In this explanation, the organ affected by Botox is the muscle.

To a non-scientist, the second theory actually makes sense following this logic: Botox is injected into the muscle therefore, the organ affected is the muscle.

However, when one realizes that the Botulinum Toxin, from which Botox is derived, is a neurotoxin, you realize that it can and will have an effect on the functions of neurons so it is plausible that they affect the nerve that is responsible for making the muscles move even if the drug is injected in the latter.

Ah, the confusion.

It doesn’t help that Medline Plus, a website by the US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health, says that Botox treatments work by weakening or paralyzing certain muscles OR by blocking certain nerves. This technically gives both of the theories leg to stand on. This now leads me to 3 hypotheses: (1) both of these theories are actually correct and are not mutually exclusive in describing the effects of botox, (2) if only one of them is correct, even these government agencies are unsure which of the two is correct or (3) none of these theories is correct and there is a third explanation out there just waiting to be discovered.

On that note, let the research resume…

The Truth About How Botox Works is a post from: Botox Patient

Debunking Botox Myths

Botox Patient — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:27:10 +0000

We’ve started writing the Insider’s Guide To Botox and are keeping you in mind the whole time — as much as possible, we’d like to address your Botox concerns from the moment you start deliberating if you’re a good candidate for the procedure until the time you schedule your next treatment.

One of the things that we decided to do is address the myths surrounding Botox and give you the correct information.

We came across several erroneous and misleading articles and commentaries online while conducting our initial research and this propelled our efforts into separating Botox myths from facts. We also took note of common misconceptions and will distinguish which ones are true and which are not.

We figured that if we were to put ourselves in the shoes of someone searching around online for information that will help them decide if they’re going to go through with the procedure, we’d end up having to wrestle with confusing literature especially with topics relating to when you should schedule your next treatment, who are authorized to administer the drug and something as basic as how the drug works.

All this is geared towards creating the ultimate guide for the smart Botox patient.

Here are the general headlines of the Guide:

Botox Basics: Everything you need to know even before your first consult
Botox Treatment: Overcoming Botox Jitters
Botox Aftermath: Making the effects of Botox last

Debunking Botox Myths is a post from: Botox Patient

The Insiders Guide To Botox

Botox Patient — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:51:13 +0000

I’ve been thinking about what we’ll need to answer in the Insiders’ Guide To Botox

Here are some of my thoughts about what we’ll reveal.

The Insiders Guide To Botox will be a tell-all revelation that will put you on the inside of one of the most sought-after and talked about cosmetic treatments around. This is information that no one else will give you and your friends and family don’t know.

Find out what your Doctor doesn’t want you to know about your Botox treatments
Learn how your doctor decides how much to charge you
Discover why some women are injecting themselves with Botox at home
Know what to ask your doctor in your consultation
Understand how Botox works, and if it will work for you.
Find out why some Doctors are administering fake Botox.

This guide gives you the inside scoop on the most popular cosmetic treatment for crows feet and foreheads. Botox has been around for a long time. You may have even had it. But did you know that.

Some doctors have lost their licenses for giving their patients fake Botox.
Websites are hawking ‘do it yourself Botox treatments’, and states are shutting them down.
China is pushing fake Botox into the US market, with disastrous results.
Some doctors are ‘watering down’ their Botox to save money.
There are new competitors coming on to the market.
Doctors get kickbacks for pushing more Botox.
Botox has a bottom price.

Where to get real information about Botox.

The Insiders Guide To Botox is a post from: Botox Patient

Getting Botox For The First Time

Botox Patient — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:27:41 +0000

We’re about to make available a new guide for anyone looking in to the possibility of getting Botox for the first time.

Here’s the very first outline that we’re starting to work from. Of course, it’s only a rough draft but it’ll take shape soon enough.

Botox Patient: Getting Botox For The First Time. A guide to Botox for smart women.

Before: a woman thinking it over at home

What is Botox
Address the concern that Botox is a toxin
What it does
Why it has the effect that it does
Am I candidate for Botox injections
How do I select a Physician/Clinic
During: a woman on her first consult and procedure
What is the nature of the office examination
Questions that Physicians ask
Questions that a Patient must ask
How soon after the first consult can the procedure be done

The Botox Treatment

How is it administered
Where is it injected
Is it painful?
What a patient can do to minimize the pain (Take pain killers before the procedure?)
How long does the procedure last
Out patient procedure
Is it advisable to do it during lunch hour?
We could include the “what you need to know but doctors don’t tell you” part here

After: a woman who just finished her first botox treatment

What are the things a first-timer must remember
How long does the effect last (how long before next treatment)
Possible side effects
Any special advice to take care of skin that has been recently botoxed
How to address possible inflammation or tenderness on the area treated
How to make the botox last

Getting Botox For The First Time is a post from: Botox Patient

Botox Without Needles

Botox Patient — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:20:30 +0000

New news on Botox without needles or injections.

Botox Without Needles is a post from: Botox Patient

Botox ready for a price surge?

Botox Patient — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:50:16 +0000

Botox maker Allergan is getting ready to break resistance, and one investor is fine-tuning a position to take profits and maximize gains.

optionMONSTER’s Heat Seeker tracking program detected the purchase of 6,000 January 65 calls for $0.80 and the sale of 3,000 January 60 calls for $3.05. Volume exceeded open interest in the higher strikes and not the lower, indicating that the investor rolled a position into the higher strike.

AGN rose 2.44 percent to $61.83 in late morning trading and reached a new 52-week high of $61.94. The stock is attempting to break an old peak from September 2008, after which point the next resistance is likely to be around $69.

Rolling the calls forward allowed the investor to recover $435,000 of premium while doubling the number of options they own on the stock. The move also increases their likely gain on a percentage basis. If AGN rallies to $69, their position will appreciate about 400 percent.

If they had stayed in the January 60 calls, they’d only make about 200 percent and run the risk of losing money if the shares reverse lower.

AGN’s sales and profit beat expectations the last time the company reported results on Oct. 29.
Overall options volume in the name is almost 13 times greater than average today, with calls outnumbering puts by 145 to 1.

Botox ready for a price surge? is a post from: Botox Patient

Botox Patient: Allergan’s CEO comments on proposed new “Botax”

Botox Patient — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:03:14 +0000

Botox manufacturer Allergan’s CEO calls tax impact to company “pretty marginal”…

(Reuters) – Botox maker Allergan Inc (AGN.N) is actively fighting a proposed U.S. cosmetic surgery tax, but sees a marginal impact on the company, Allergan’s chief executive told Reuters on Friday.

Healthcare legislation pending in the U.S. Senate includes a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery procedures, nicknamed the “Botax” after Allergan’s popular wrinkle-fighting injection.

The impact would be “pretty marginal” for Allergan overall, CEO David Pyott said in an interview.

He said adding 5 percent to the average $440 cost of a Botox procedure would have a “very marginal” impact on demand, but could have a “larger” effect on breast implant procedures that cost upward of $5,000, he said.

Still, the company is lobbying to have the tax killed because “we really feel strongly this is bad policy,” Pyott said.

“I think it’s a dangerous precedent. It’s extremely discriminatory against women,” who make up about 90 percent of cosmetic surgery patients.

“Why not have a tax on drugs for male balding or for erectile dysfunction? Why are we picking on women?” he said.

Many patients are middle-class, working women and not just the wealthy, Pyott said. He pointed to an American Society of Plastic Surgeons survey that showed 60 percent of people planning to have cosmetic surgery lived in households with annual income below $90,000.

The tax in the Senate bill is estimated to raise roughly $5 billion over 10 years to help pay for a healthcare overhaul costing $849 billion. It is not included in health legislation that passed the House of Representatives.

Among Allergan’s products, the tax would apply to Botox, wrinkle filler Juvederm, eyelash drug Latisse and breast implants, Pyott said.

The tax would apply to cosmetic procedures that are “not necessary to ameliorate a deformity” related to “a congenital abnormality, a personal injury resulting from an accident or trauma, or disfiguring disease,” according to the bill.

Sales of Botox rose about 3 percent in the third quarter to $328 million following declines in previous quarters that the company blamed on waning use of cosmetic procedures during the economic downturn. Allergan’s breast implant sales amounted to $69 million in the third quarter.

Allergan would not pay the tax directly, but doctors would be required to collect it from patients.

The company’s lobbying efforts include a website and Facebook page to rally tax opponents. The website calls the plan “a tax on self-improvement.”

More than 10,000 people have signed an online petition opposing the tax and more than 7,500 letters have been sent to senators, Pyott said.

The tax was added recently to the Senate healthcare bill as lawmakers looked for new ways to help fund wider insurance coverage and other changes.

“We needed money to make the bill work while using a funding mechanism that would allow us to stay within the healthcare arena,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Botox Patient: Allergan’s CEO comments on proposed new “Botax” is a post from: Botox Patient

Botox Patient: Latisse fans and detractors

Botox Patient — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:39:32 +0000

Taking a prescription drug for a cosmetic side effect — at the risk of other side effects — may seem risky. But it’s a risk that many Americans, mostly women, have shown themselves happy to take.

Latisse, originally a glaucoma drug marketed under the name Lumigan, was approved separately at the end of last year for its
eyelash-enhancing purposes, and its maker, Allergan, has reported sales of $47.7 million thus far. The company says 2009 sales could reach $70 million, exceeding projections of $30 million to $50 million. The national advertising campaign featuring model and actress Brooke Shields hasn’t hurt.

The success of Latisse, however, concerns some ophthalmologists –
albeit medically conservative ones, who say it’s important to see an
eye doctor before taking any eye medication, especially if you’ve never
had a full eye exam. As increasing numbers of dermatologists, plastic
surgeons and medical-spa physicians prescribe the drug, the desire for
pretty eyelashes seems to be taking precedence over eye health, they
say.

Besides stimulating lash growth, the drug can cause eye redness,
itchiness, irritation, infection, darkening of the skin around the
application area. It may even cause a change in eye color, especially
in people who have any amount of brown pigment in their eyes.

“As it is, most Americans don’t get basic routine eye exams, and it’s
really important that people get a baseline eye exam before they
consider using a drug like Latisse,” says Andrew Iwach, the executive
director of the Glaucoma Center in San Francisco and a spokesman for
the American Academy of Ophthalmology. “The eyes are a delicate tissue.
And if someone is thinking about Latisse, they need to see if there are
any contraindications or underlying problems they aren’t aware of.”

Such contraindications, or conditions precluding the use of the drug,
include pregnancy, breast feeding, cataract surgery and ocular
inflammation. “Use Latisse as an opportunity to look good but to see
well too,” Iwach said.

There simply is no long-term data on Latisse, he points out. The
original version, Lumigan, wasn’t even approved for glaucoma until
2001. “We have data for using this type of medication as an eye drop,”
he said. “But we don’t know if this will have a cumulative risk with
topical application over time.”

To many, the gamble is a small one — and well worth taking.

Continue article

Botox Patient: Latisse fans and detractors is a post from: Botox Patient

Allergan’s Botox profit.

Botox Patient — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:24:26 +0000

Allergan Inc (AGN.N) on Thursday said its quarterly profit rose, as sales of anti-wrinkle drug Botox rebounded from an earlier slump and helped offset lower sales of medical devices.

The company’s third-quarter earnings increased 8 percent to $179 million, or 58 cents per share, compared with $165 million, or 54 cents per share, in the year-earlier period.

Excluding special items, Allergan earned 70 cents per share. Analysts on average expected 69 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company’s shares were up 1.2 percent at $54.20 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Allergan said global sales rose 4.2 percent to $1.13 billion in the quarter, somewhat higher than analysts’ expectations of $1.08 billion.

Sales of Botox rose about 3 percent to $328 million, following declines in earlier quarters that the company had attributed to waning use of cosmetic procedures during the economic downturn.

For full-year 2009, Allergan forecast earnings of $2.75 to $2.77 per share, excluding special items, compared with Wall Street expectations of $2.75 per share.

The company said it expects full-year sales of $4.35 billion to $4.4 billion, compared with Wall Street forecasts of $4.32 billion. (Reporting by Ransdell Pierson, editing by Dave Zimmerman)

Botox Patient: Posted from Laser Treatment MD

Allergan’s Botox profit. is a post from: Botox Patient

Botox around the world

Botox Patient — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:16:41 +0000

There's a lot of Botox used around the world from sweating to headaches to wrinkles.

Here's a graphic from a Botox story on CNN.

In the hunt to discover the next blockbuster medical use for Botox, doctors have injected it experimentally into muscles and glands all over the body, making it medicine’s answer to duct tape. According to recent medical journals, physicians have used it to treat chewing problems, swallowing problems, pelvic muscle spasms, drooling, hair loss, anal fissures and pain from missing limbs.

“We see it as a molecule that keeps on giving. As we understand it more, it gives us new ideas of how to use it,” says Dr. Mitchell F. Brin, a neurologist who is the chief scientific officer for Botox at Allergan, the drug’s maker.

No other therapeutic agent “has so many demonstrated uses,” he says.

But some health advocates worry that doctors are widely adopting novel uses for Botox before federal guidance and rigorous clinical studies have established safe and effective dosages for the new treatments.

“It’s trial and error with a nerve poison,” says Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, the director of the health research group at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group. Last year, the group petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to require a warning label for injectable toxins.

Botox Patient: Posted from Laser Treatment MD

Botox around the world is a post from: Botox Patient