Houston Plastic Surgery Blog

The trade name Botox comes from a contraction of its active ingredient: botulinum toxin. That's right, the main ingredient in Botox is a toxin that is produced by a food-poisoning bacterium, one of the most dangerous ones that can lead to paralysis or even death. In the past year, too, there have been news stories reporting that as many as 16 people have died as a result of injection with Botox and a similar competing product.

But the truth is that Botox is the most popular cosmetic treatment in use today, and its safety record is excellent. You know that news outlets make their living by creating stories even where none exists, and this is one of those cases. There is no reason to be concerned about Botox injections because:

• Only one of the deaths might actually have been connected with a cosmetic use of Botox. The majority of deaths were in treatments for spasms and palsies in children, where a much higher dose is used in a smaller body.
  

• In all these deaths, the connection with botulinum toxin is only alleged, not proven, and children with serious palsies undergoing botulinum toxin therapy have many other elevated health risks.
  

• Since its introduction as a cosmetic procedure, over 20 million Botox treatments have been performed. This means that even if the one death alleged to be connected with cosmetic Botox injection turns out to actually be connected, the chances of dying from Botox injections are less than 1 in 20 million. This makes the risk of dying from Botox injection less than 20 thousand times the LIFETIME risk of dying by complications of other medical and surgical care.

Botox is and remains one of the safest cosmetic procedures available. Botox has a proven track record of good results and low incidence of side effects that is the hallmark of its popularity.

If you would like to learn more about the safety of this or any other procedure, schedule a cosmetic procedure consultation with Dr. Lapuerta at the Plastic Surgery Institute of Southeast Texas today.