Can ‘Botox’ raise my eyebrows?

The short answer is POSSIBLY.

This is a frequent question asked in my Plymouth aesthetic clinic. The answer depends on several factors.

In our 20s and 30s our skin is naturally elastic with good amounts of collagen, elastin and good skin ‘turgor’ i.e. spring back. As this declines we can get eye lid and brow heaviness.

To answer this question, we have to understand how anti-wrinkle treatments work.

How ‘Botox’ works:

Botulinum toxin BLOCKS the pull of muscles. We must target and block the muscles that pull downwards to create a lifting effect.

How to achieve a ‘chemical brow lift’:

To elevate the lateral brow and give the eye lift we must do several things:

-Treat the muscles pulling down- these are known as the glabella area/ frown area. The two corrugator muscles pulling in and down, and the procerus muscle in the middle.
-Omit treating the lateral (side) part or ALL of the frontalis muscle. This may come with leaving lines and movement. This is the trickiest problem for all injectors- the lift vs lines conundrum.
-Cautiously treat the top part of the orbicularis oculi muscle to block any pull down from this muscle that surrounds the eye.

The gold standard treatment for lifting the brows and when there is excess skin causing hooding is a surgical blepharoplasty +/- surgical brow lift.

Other options include Morpheus 8 radiofrequency micro needling for the eyes and also possibly a new treatment using polynucleotides, particularly when used prior to toxin to repair the elastin and collagen. To be explained in my next post.