Botox Cosmetic® is intended to enhance the way you look, not change it. When administered by an experienced physician, you can still smile, frown and be expressive. The treatment only relaxes the muscle beneath the lines at the point of injection, so the other elements of your facial expression remain active. It also has no effect on the sensory nerves so you will have normal feeling in the areas treated.
The effects usually last up to four months. After repeat treatments, the effects may begin to last longer.
A tiny amount of Botox Cosmetic® is injected very precisely into the muscle being treated. A very fine needle and a small amount of liquid is used, so the pain associated with the injection is minimal. The sensation has been compared to a bug bite. No sedation or local anesthetic is required and you can resume normal activities immediately.
Botox® has been licensed in Canada since 1990 as a safe and effective treatment for a variety of medical conditions. In 2001, Health Canada approved Botox Cosmetic® for wrinkle therapy and it has been proven to be safe through extensive research and testing.
Hair grows in repeating cycles, and only in the actively growing phase does the hair contain enough pigment to absorb sufficient energy to disable the hair follicle. When hair is in the dormant phase, it has little or no pigment, and it cannot absorb the laser light. When you come in for your treatment, we disable all of the hair follicles with actively growing hair in the treatment area. A few weeks later, some of your dormant hairs will have moved into the actively growing stage, and you will come in for a treatment to disable those. As this cycle gets repeated, you experience increasing reduction of hair. It usually takes six to eight treatment sessions to get full clearance of unwanted hair.
You may experience a small but manageable sensation that we describe as a “pinch” or a “zap” when we pulse the laser. However, with new state-of-the-art lasers, laser hair removal procedures are much more comfortable than they were in the past. Our lasers use a cooling system that protects your outer skin during treatment. It functions to remove the heat that gives you that zapping feeling during the laser pulses.
Fillers are injected under the skin in a safe and quick procedure that can be done over your lunch hour. They plump up the skin and replenish lost volume giving you a more refreshed look. Fillers are also mixed with an anesthetic called lidocaine which makes the procedure much more comfortable.
Immediately upon injection, fillers restore volume and smooth out wrinkles. Results can last up to a year in many patients.
As with any injection, patients may experience side effects such as mild irritation, swelling, itching, redness, bruising and tenderness at the injection site. These are short-term and resolve on their own. Most patients can return to their regular activities immediately following treatment.
