What Do Doctors Do with the Remaining Botox when They Only Use 10-15 Units from a 50 Unit "Single-unit" Vial of Botox?

Botox comes in 50 unit and 200 unit vials.  If only 10 or 20 units are used from a 50 unit vial, the remainder is stored (refrigerated) for a few days. The product is removed with a new sterile needle each time so there is no risk of contamination.

Best wishes,

Dr.Bruno

Hi Plump.  As many of the other practitioners have explained, the use of a Botox for multiple patients is performed in a way as to keep the product sterile.  The most basic explanation is that the needles used to inject the Botox are not reinserted into the Botox vial once they have been used on a patient.  This ensures that the sealed vial remains sterile.

Botox does expire once it is mixed with saline and we usually use it within 1-2 days of mixing.  The manufacturer recommends that the product be thrown out 2 weeks after it is mixed with saline.  Check the link below regarding the Botox safety.

 

Botox comes in a 50 or 100U vial in the us.  It is mixed up with saline and drawn into syringes as it is used.  We never "re-load" a syringe that has been in the patient.  But one vial can treat more than one patent.  We buy the 100 U vials and get 2-3 patients out of it.

As the Botox liquid in the bottle is not contaminated from a sterile syringe that is used to draw up the liquid, the left over Botox is then used for the next syringe which is a fresh, sterile syringe and needle. The bottle is dated and refrigerated. In busy practices the bottle only lasts a day to a few days and its effectiveness is not compromised. Don't confuse this with a situation if there would happen to be left over Botox in the syringe aftere your treatment. That doesn't happen in my practice as we draw up only what we need for that particular patient.  But if in another doctor's practice, not all the botox in the syringe were used to treat their patient, the left over would be discarded because that would be considered to risk a cross contamination if used, even with a new sterile needle.

The Botox Cosmetic is intended to be used for multiple patients.  We remove a certain number of units and therefore the Botox vial remains sterile and can be safely used until it is gone.

The vial comes sterile, is reconstituted in a sterile fashion, and drawn up using sterile technique.  There is no issue using these vials to prepare injections for multiple treatments.  However, BOTOX is best used within 4 hours of reconstitution.  Beyond this time frame, practitioners will often dispose of the remainder of the vial.  The Allergan company has done tests that show the product has virtually no loss of strength for 2 weeks.  By using sterile techniques, the reconstituted agent could be safely used during this time frame.  As a practical reality offices such as mine that uses so much of this agent, what is reconstituted is used almost immediately.  The value of the smaller vial is that less of this agent needs to be reconstituted and this increases scheduling flexibility and reduces the risk of having to waste perfectly fine, but unused product.  This is important because the cost of this agent is very high to both you and the doctor.

Thank you for your question. Most Botox vials are either 50 or 100 units therefore it is not uncommon to use the same vial for more than one patient. However, the top of the vial should be sterilized with alcohol and change needles for each syringe. It is common to use a different needle for withdrawing the Botox than for injecting. If you have any concerns please discuss with your injector. Best of Luck!

I typically draw up how ever much of Botox that I need and then the rest I refrigerate. Typically in most practices, Botox sits in the the refrigerator for just a few days because it gets used up pretty quick. For example, we open a new bottle almost every morning and sometimes many times during the day. Dr. Ben Behnam.

The average area treated typically requires 10-30 units of botox cosmetic. Botox from the same vial can be used to treat multiple areas in the same patient or multiple patients. As long as proper sterile technique is used to prepare the botox solution and to inject the botox, it is perfectly safe to administer botox to multiple patients from the same vial. In a busy botox practice. Such as mine, once the vial is prepared, it usually is empty within 24 hours of preparation and never sits around long enough to lose its efficacy. If you are receiving botox treatments in a practice that occasionaly performs botox injections, only then would u want to be concerned about what happens to the left over botox in terms of how many weeks has the prepared botox been sitting around.

Unfortunately, there are no single use vials of Botox--you get what you get, really. So, we try to use it as efficiently as possible to maximize use, while not compromising patient safety (what we want as surgeons) and of course, efficacy (what patient's want). Of course, if the patient pays in full for the vial cost, then they can do whatever they want with it (that is, within reason, of course). Unfortunately, the doctor is providing the Botox in most cases, and 100 units is generally too much for one time use. Perhaps, the future, they will have reconstitution solution that can allow Botox to last for many months, so you can save it for later use. But at this point,t he technology is not there.