Botox Not Safe Or Cruelty Free

The amount of women and men, including teenagers, popping in for a quick BOTOX top up every few months or so is seriously alarming. Do people really understand what BOTOX is and that Botox Not Safe or Cruelty Free should be on the label of each and every bottle?

BOTOX, or Botulinum Neurotoxin Type A, is a powerful neurotoxin produced from bacterium. It is part of the family that cause Botulism, a rare paralytic illness from food poisoning that can lead to death. As one nurse said to me who works with BOTOX for ‘real’ and not superficial medical procedures – “Why would any sane person want to inject a neurotoxin into their forehead, so close to their brain?”

To me this sums up the risks perfectly, is smoothing a wrinkle worth the risk of paralysis or worse?

The well respected Mayo Clinic states that “BOTOX is relatively safe when preformed by an experienced doctor…” read here. Relatively is not a word that invokes much confidence when you are dealing with a neurotoxin!

But there are risks and are they worth it? Why have we become so vain and obsessed with looking younger to the point where we are prepared to regularly stick needles containing a nerve poison in to our faces?

Botox Side Effects

Minor Side Effects Of Botox

Some of the minor side effects of BOTOX are things like, eye-lid droop, crooked smile, cock-eyed eyebrows and either excessive tearing or dry eye, dizziness, infection, bleeding and bruising at the site of the injection, flu type symptoms, fever, nausea, diarrhea, headache, sore throat, ringing in the ears, dry mouth, dry throat, neck and back pain and the list goes on..

Serious Side Effects Of Botox

Then you have the more serious and even life threatening side effects of BOTOX and these are basically the same ones that Botulism causes; e.g. trouble breathing, trouble swallowing and speaking, loss of bladder control, chest pain, irregular heart beats, blurred vision, severe itching, muscle weakness and more.

Basically BOTOX may be injected into a wrinkle on your face but the poison has the ability to migrate around your body. This BOTOX report by MedFacts.com. on is Allondynia a side effect of BOTOX shows statistics of the reports made to the FDA of side effects due to BOTOX treatments between Jan 2004 and October 2012.

Between this period there has been a total of 4958 reports of adverse reactions to BOTOX, some life threatening, some disfiguring and some just down right unpleasant. Remember these are only the cases that have been reported to the FDA, there are plenty more that are not reported! Read report here.

The doctors and practitioners that use BOTOX for anti-aging purposes are currently laughing all the way to the bank, as it is such a lucrative, relatively simple, time friendly procedure for them to perform. Those suffering from nasty side-effects from BOTOX are quietly being pushed away hidden under the rug. Occasionally you will see a news report of a law suit due to BOTOX adverse effects, but generally you will only hear praises for this fountain of youth toxin.

If you are thinking of trying out BOTOX, please first have a look at this potential warning list of side-effects for BOTOX by RX List– The Internet Drug Index. This list was compiled by medical doctors and pharmacists and we believe this should be enough to scare off anyone wanting to banish a few measly laugh lines.

BOTOX has to date, not been studied for safety for use in pregnancy or breastfeeding mothers either.

Botox IS TESTED ON ANIMALS Regularly

BOTOX is one of the most inhumane beauty treatments around as every batch is currently tested on animals using the horrific LD50 test (lethal dose 50 test).

This is because BOTOX is so toxic that is must be diluted down before it can be used on humans and this diluting process causes changes in the potency of the toxin and therefore each batch of BOTOX is tested on animals to ensure that it still has enough potency for it to be effective. Read this report by Doctors Against Animal Experiments Germany BOTOX Animal cruelty for a questionable beauty.

Botox Gives You Wrinkles In Other Areas

On a personal note as a professional freelance hair and makeup artist, I have seen my fair share of BOTOX-ed faces and the effects are 9 times out of 10, pretty poor in my opinion. For instance, if someone has had BOTOX injected into their crows feet, afterwards when they smile, they develop an odd pulling horizontal line (or you could call it a wrinkle) under their eyes. This seems to happen as basically the skin has to give somewhere when a person smiles and this pulling line tends to give people quite a severe, (and again in my opinion, ‘aging’) less than warm look, when ironically what they are attempting to convey, is the expression of happiness and warmth.

Natural Alternatives To Botox

While there is nothing that is cruelty-free and natural that will freeze wrinkle like Botox, you can do a variety of things that will help prevent further wrinkle and soften and minimize current wrinkles

Moisturize your face and body natural anti-aging, cold-pressed, organic oils such as argan, coconout, rosehip, olive, hemp and jojoba oils.

Eat a diet high in vitamin and antioxidant rich, organic, vegan fruits and vegetables that are high in anti-oxidants and good fats and oils.

Be sure to include in your diet plenty of organic nuts, avocado’s, linseed, hemp seeds, chia seeds and raw, cold-pressed coconut oil and hemp seed oil (high in omega 3’s and 6’s).

Keep your face out of the sun and stay hydrated be drinking plenty of purified water. Keeping healthy will go a long way towards helping you keep that youthful glow.

Regularly exfoliate your skin, as it does wonders for skin rejuvenation.

Massage your face and learn a meditation that includes relaxing your facial muscles, as this will help you become more aware of when you are frowning, pursing your lips etc.. and help you to correct these expressions that lead to wrinkles.