Botox Has Use Beyond Fighting Wrinkles
Botox is famous for its ability to smooth wrinkles in the face, and now Johns Hopkins researchers may have found another use that goes beyond the cosmetic.
The researchers gave patients with thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS), a debilitating nerve compression disorder, one low-dose injection of Botox in a neck muscle. After the Botox, the patients reported a significant reduction in their short-term pain.
The study suggests that Botox could be a less-invasive alternative to the syndrome’s treatment of last resort—surgery to remove a rib.
“There haven’t been many alternatives to the use of surgery to treat this syndrome,” says the study’s lead author, Paul J. Christo, M.D., M.B.A., an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Botox seems to be an effective treatment that avoids surgery’s obvious drawbacks, such as its invasive nature and long recovery time.”
The effect from Botox lasts only a few months, so repeated injections would be necessary to maintain the results. However, repeated treatments could lead to the development of antibodies to the compound in patients; as a result Botox would no longer block the pain. Dr. Christo says that means that not all patients with TOS are candidates for Botox.
Botox’s use as a cosmetic procedure remains very popular, even as more therapeutic uses are discovered. The American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery reported that it was the number one less-invasive cosmetic procedure in the United States in their 2009 cosmetic surgery statistics. Botox is one of the services Dr. Stacy offers at her Bellevue, Washington office and is the most popular cosmetic treatment in Bellevue and Seattle, according to her website.
The full release on the study, Botox Eases Nerve Pain in Certain Patients, can be viewed at the Johns Hopkins Medicine website.
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