Botox on crows feet affecting smile? (Photo)

Thank you for your question. It is difficult to give you advice without knowing where and what dosage of Botox was injected.  However, I agree with you that your smile has been affected. Your smile will return back to normal when the Botox wears off in 3-6 months. I recommend having this evaluated by your treating physician.

Dear yesenias1990,

I see exactly what you mean.

And I can see what has happened here as well. You are very perceptive. 

First thing is, do not worry, your smile will look happy and not "starey" in about 12 - 16 weeks after injection. Second thing, and more important, don't have "crows feet" botox again for many years, keep those laughter lines. They are beautiful.

When we say treat "crow's feet" with botox, what we mean is that we are injecting botox into the orbicularis oculi, the drawstring muscle around the eye, very thin muscle, to make it more difficult to scrunch it - something one needs to to be able to do when protecting the eyes by squinting, squeezing eyes tight shut, etc.

On the surface (and for btx injectors) it may seem the right thing to do to remove those smile lines that pop up at the corners of our eyes when we smile, especially since drug companies decided to call them by the ugly term "crow's feet" - I call them smilies. But is it really the right thing in terms of facial expression as a whole?Probably not. There is a popular psychology term the "Pan Am Smile" named after the friendly but forced smile that was trained into the Pan Am flight crews when greeting people as part of their "great customer service" image.Today, some may refer to it as the courtesy smile which is polite but superficial.

What your photo shows is a "Botox smile". French physician Guillaume Duchenne (1806-1875) described this "courtesy smile", as "the smile that plays upon just the lips when our soul is sad."Duchenne researched the smile in great detail in 1862. His findings revealed that an artificial smile used only the large muscles on each side of the face, the zygomaticus major. 

But a genuine smile, induced by a joke, involved the obicularis oculi, as well. The resulting effect is a visible wrinkling around the corners of the eyes that lies outside voluntary control. You really can't help a happy smile smile - it just bursts upon your face!Remember, these lines appear with smiling, but don't leave creases unless your skin is deteriorating due to pile-up of dead cells or photo-aging (sun-damage).

In research circles, a genuine smile is still known as a ‘Duchenne Smile’ while a fake smile is a ‘Pan Am Smile’ after the air hostesses in the defunct airline’s adverts.

Hope my philosophical/ medical ramblings would both reassure and inform you! Good luck!

Focus not just on the lines, but on the face and person as a whole!