After a Few Days of Botox Injection in the Forehead and Between the Eyes, is It Okay to Squint Heavily?

I usually encourage patients to move the involved muscles that were injected with botox. This may help with uptake of the product.

Do not worry about the squinting you're doing affecting the longevity of the Botox effect in the glabellar region of the forehead. There should be no compromise to its muscular relaxation of the frown.

This is a great question because the natural tendency after you get a treatment to stop wrinkling is to try to help it out by not creating the wrinkles by frowning or squinting, but have no fear! You can't (for better or worse) make the Botox wear off faster by engaging the muscles more, and you can't make it work less well by wrinkling the skin by frowning or squinting. It will take two weeks for the Botox to take its maximum effect and holding your facial expressions flat during this time will not help it turn out better. In fact, there are some doctors who feel that engaging the muscles of expression early on after treatment helps the Botox get absorbed into the relevant muscle more effectively, making the results even better! So squint away.... you may actually be helping your results! 

 

On a side note, if your eyes are very sensitive to sunlight, please do wear protective sunglasses that block UV rays on a regular basis. Not only can you get skin cancer on your eyelids from excessive sun exposure, but you can get melanoma skin cancer on the retina in the back of your eye, as well as increase your chance of macular degeneration and blindness later in life with excessive exposure to very bright light. If Botox weakens your ability to squint your eyes shut in a normal, protective way, this is even more important.

I agree that squinting after a couple hours of Botox injection is good as it helps the nerve ending absorb the Botox and give better effects. Waiting a week after will not effect the result.

Squinting should not be a problem after treatment. Each injector has different post treatment protocols so ensure that you understand the protocols of your injector.

This is a question that comes up all the time. Clients fear that activity, exercise or something else that they can do will effect the results of their treatment.  The fact is there is nothing that someone can do to make Botox any more or less effective.  This wive's tale exists to explain poor results.  Instead of accepting responsibility for a poor result, injectors will blame their patients.  I tell everyone I treat, if we get a result you're not happy with, it is my fault not yours and I'll fix it.  If a doctor blames you, saying you squinted heavily, find a new doctor.

It takes Botox about a week to take effect. Squinting should not be a problem after treatment. Enjoy.

There should be no adverse effect on the activity or duration of Botox or Dysport from using the treated muscles even immediately after injection.  I tell my patients they can actively furrow their brow and squint to try to hasten the onset of action, but there is really no evidence as to whether this makes a difference.

Great question.  I instruct my patients to intentionally move those very muscles that we wish to relax.  I have each patient do "facial aerobics" after each treatment.  This consists of moving the muscles that we want to relax a few times every 5 minutes for about 2 hours after their treatment.  In my experience, this leads to a better result.  As far as how long the Botox or Dysport will last is a tough questions.  In my experience, typically Botox will last about 3 months and Dysport about 4 months.  These time periods can vary patient to patient and even treatment to treatment.  If the Botox or Dysport was diluted more or less units were used that could lead to a shorter duration.  Autoantibodies have also been suggested as reason that some patients will have a short duration of effect with these agents.

 

 No, when you squint you're contracting the very muscles the Botox is trying to relax.  The full effects of the Botox takes about 3-5 days to peak however, squinting will make the effects of the Botox shorter lasting.  Here's why: Botox blocks the chemicals responsible for contraction of the targeted muscle.  When you contract that muscle, it encourages new chemical connections to develop making the Botox effects wear off sooner.