Why Can't You Use Botox for the Saggy Wrinkled Skin Around the Elbows?

The saggy wrinkled skin around your elbows is due to lax skin and not to muscle contraction. Therefore, injecting the skin will do nothing to relax or ease the severity of the wrinkles around the elbow.

Hi Anabel.  The problem with the theory is that Botox does not work in situations where there is too much skin (skin laxity).  Because the wrinkles on the elbow are caused by excess saggy skin rather than by muscle contraction, it cannot be treated with Botox.  

Hopefully your Mom will find another solution for those saggy elbows.

I love your forward thinking! Unfortunately, Botox does treat the dynamic wrinkles about the face...these are lines of skin creasing caused by both thinning skin and the constant bending back and forth caused by the muscles of facial animation, much like the paper-clip breaking after bending it to and fro. The elbow skin is loose skin that genetics and age have loosened and that gravity is pulling on. Best way to treat it, currently, is an arm lift. 

Thanks for the great question!

Dr. C

johnconnorsmd.com

The only action of Botox is a temporary paralysis of the muscles it is injected into.  If those muscles are respondsible for creasing the skin and causing wrinkles and lines, then the wrinkles and lines won't be created and the skin can appear smoother.  Elbow wrinkles are caused by a lifetime of skin stretching and would not be inproved by Botox.

I am not aware of physicians who might have tried this off label, but the skin is wrinkled on the elbow as it is being stretched often, unlike the folding of the skin on the forehead and outer eyelids (crow's feet) from muscle contraction which makes the overlying skin contract. Once the muscle is quiet the skin smoothens, but on the elbow, the botox wouldn't elminate the arm movement and the skin would constantly stretch out. One never knows and sometimes in the field of medicine we discover uses of medication which were not expected.

Dynamic wrinkles are those wrinkles that you have when you are contracting muscles to produce them. Static lines or wrinkles are those that are there in repose. In the case of your elbows, this is positional. That means that, like your neck, or knees, depending on how they are flexed there is extra tissue that is creating those wrinkles you are bothered by. Potentially, different types of skin resurfacing (ie DOT laser)could be helpful although they wouldn't eradicate these types of wrinkles.

The face is the only part of the body where muscles attach to the skin, for the purpose of expression. When these muscles are hyperactive, as is often the case for example with the "corrugators" that cause the vertical wrinkles to form between the eyebrows, relaxing the muscle with Botox is very effective. Wrinkles above the elbow are due to skin laxity so unfortunately Botox would have no effect. When someone develops a consistently effective way to tighten loose skin without surgery or scars we will surely hear about it!

Hi,

Botox only works on dynamic, or moving muscles.  It doesn't work on saggy skin which is better treated with a tissue tightening procedure.  You are better off looking at technologies that address skin laxity like Thermage CPT or Refirme.

 

Best,

Dr. Liu

Regarding: "Why Can't You Use Botox for the Saggy Wrinkled Skin Around the Elbows?
Surely the principle is the same as for the dynamic wrinkles on the face? I know that women get very concerned about their elbows giving away their age. I'm pretty sure it would be a highly popular procedure, should it come into effect! I've never used botox myself but it just occurred to me, as my mother always moans about her saggy elbows! A gap in the market?!"

Regarding your mother's persistent "moans about her saggy elbows!", as Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) said in PSYCHO - "A boy's best friend is his mother". Botox is surely NOT the answer because elbow and knee wrinkles are NOT created by the same mechanism as dynamic face wrinkles.

While facial wrinkles are caused by the repeated movement of underlying facial expression muscles the wrinkles overlying elbows and knees are there to allow full flexion of the limbs. Injecting Botox under the skin of the elbows would do NOTHING to smooth those wrinkles. If it did become popular, it would be among malpractice lawyers whose clients complained of curious weakness in being able to flex their limbs.

Dr. Peter Aldea

Unfortunately, Botox will not help wrinkling of the elbows because it is not caused by muscle movement.  It is caused by excess skin in the area that gets pushed together when the arm straightens.  Great hydration and moisturization is the best way to improve this condition.

I hope my answer was helpful.