The Surprising Truth About Dental Botox

Aging is an inevitable part of life. However, through science, we can prolong longevity – from our skin to teeth.

While there are several cosmetic dentistry services to help you maintain the youthful appearance of your teeth, we have another surprising solution for you. Botox.

Botox is a misunderstood word, as many people associate it with removing fine lines and wrinkles. But they don’t understand what it is or how it can help you beyond cosmetic purposes.

While everyone knows about cosmetic Botox, few know that dental Botox offers a lot of oral health benefits. Let’s discuss.

What Is Botox?

Botox is the name for botulinum toxin A, which is a neurotoxic protein produced by a bacterium, called clostridium botulinum, found in many natural substances. We can also derive Botox from clostridium butyricum and clostridium baratii bacteria.

We use Botox for not just aesthetic but also medically therapeutic uses. We have used Botox for the treatment of crossed eyes, muscle spasms of eyelids, urinary incontinence, migraines, upper limb spasticity, and more.

How Does Botox Work?

Botox works by inhibiting the action of acetylcholine (ACH), a neurotransmitter. Neurotransmitters, our body’s chemical messengers, are molecules that our nervous system uses as a medium to send messages from one nerve cell to another nerve cell or muscle. ACH’s job is to tell our muscles to contract, and Botox’s job is to prevent our muscles from getting the message to be mobile.

Botox does not traverse through your body or numb your skin. It moves through the dermis into the desired muscle, blocks the synapse, and stops the firing of the nerve for movement there. It relaxes and softens the skin in the affected area, usually around the eyes and the forehead.

One of the immediate effects of Botox is an intentional temporary paralysis of the muscles in the affected area. It won’t give you the lines and wrinkles that you don’t want.

You can resume your normal activities on the day of the procedure. You will see the full effects of Botox in about 4-7 days on an average. It should last for about 3-6 months depending on the administered dosage.

Without surgery, there is no way of maintaining the effects of Botox long-term. You’ll need to take regular Botox treatments to preserve and maintain the benefits.

Botox is a registered trademark and has been widely tested and used for over three decades. Over 6 million people receive Botox treatments and it’s completely safe under the supervision of a trained professional like a plastic surgeon or dentist.

Why Choosing A Dentist For Your Aesthetic Botox Treatment Makes Great Sense?

When there are several professionals who can administer Botox, then why should you choose a dentist?

Well, who better than dentists for handling a delicate procedure like botox. To correct our lip lines, chins, jawlines, or gummy smiles, it’s important to treat the right facial muscles with the right amount of Botox. Otherwise, it can lead to awkward facial expressions which look more frozen than natural.

Dentists are the best experts on the muscle and bone architecture of our face. Their unique background, extensive training, and rigorous experience are steeped in facial structure and anatomy. It equips them to achieve more precise and natural-looking results than other Botox providers.

Dentists administer more shots than any other healthcare practitioner, literally hundreds of injections per month. Dentists are the most proficient in delivering quick, pleasant, and painless injections.

While other Botox providers use a topical anesthetic for the treatment, dentists use dental anesthesia, when needed, to improve patient experience.

What Is Dental Botox?

Dental Botox is a minimally invasive procedure that helps improve the areas around your mouth, chin, and jawline without surgery or downtime.

The dentist injects small amounts of the botulinum toxin into the muscles responsible for producing the frown lines around your eyes, like in-between your eyebrows and around your mouth area. This process reduces the muscle activity in the targeted areas, resulting in smoother skin.

Dental Botox helps reduce fine lines and wrinkles and dramatically improves your facial appearance. It complements your cosmetic dental treatments, giving you a complete makeover that makes you look younger and fresher.

How Can Dental Botox Improve Your Oral Health

Dental Botox is a great option to treat both the therapeutic and aesthetic oral needs of patients in a safe, effective manner, at a fraction of the cost of surgery.

Here are some conditions where dental Botox can be beneficial.

1. Temporomandibular Disorder

Temporomandibular disorder (TMD) refers to the pain caused in the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) where your lower jaw joins the skull. Some symptoms of TMD include pain in your jaw, headache, restricted jaw movement, muscle stiffness, lockjaw, and clicking and popping of the TMJ. Dental Botox can bring relief from the TMD symptoms by treating the constricted temporalis and masseter muscles. We also use dental Botox injections in the specific trigger points in your face where the TMD symptoms occur.

2. Bruxism

Bruxism is a condition characterized by the grinding and clenching of the teeth. Dentists aren’t completely sure why this occurs in their patients, but it is often associated with high levels of stress. Bruxism, when left untreated, leads to tooth damage, periodontal disease, and TMD.

There are several methods to treat bruxism, including mouth guards and Botox. Botox is an effective way to relax tight jaw muscles and help relieve muscle spasms or muscle tension because of bruxism.

3. Pain And Discomfort

Dental Botox can relieve facial pain in your forehead, temples, and cheek areas. These pains may be because of muscle tension, which can get worse, leading to more chronic pain and potential oral conditions, such as teeth grinding.

According to the American Dental Association (ADA), chronic headaches such as tension-type headaches (TTH) affect over 15% of Americans. Some TTH cases are linked to temporomandibular disorder (TMD), where treating the latter with dental Botox can also reduce the TTH. Dental Botox also helps with the facial pain and discomfort that may come with certain dental procedures, such as new dentures.

4. Aesthetic purposes

Botox complements other cosmetic dental procedures and helps improve the appearance of your teeth and smile. Dental Botox can erase the wrinkles around your mouth area, treat gummy smiles, upside-down smiles, deep or laugh lines which can make you look older, heighten your lips when you smile, radial lip lines or “smoker’s lines” on the upper lip, puckered chins, the black triangles between your teeth that’s created when your gums pull away from the teeth, and more.

5. Other miscellaneous conditions

Botox can treat several other dental conditions, including masseter hypertrophy, or the enlargement of the muscles responsible for chewing food, facial swelling, excessive sweating, hypersalivation or excessive drooling, and its related dental problems.

Conclusion

Botox is a simple, safe, minimally invasive and affordable way to give you a rejuvenated face, when performed by an experienced cosmetic dentist in Redwood city. Compared to other traditional treatment options, we can perform dental Botox in less than a few minutes, with full effects visible in less than three days, and effective for around 4-6 months on average.

If you visit your dentist for cosmetic dentistry services, maybe it’s time for you to expand to dental Botox.

Disclaimer: We routinely draw upon public health resources to inform our write-ups. Information in this article may be drawn up from multiple public health sources, including:

American Dental Association’s MouthHealthy

California Dental Association

American Dental Association’s Action for Dental Health

Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

Webmd

Healthline

Laser Dentistry

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