Botox was just the beginning. The popularity of the injectable toxin overwhelmingly proved that people wanted wrinkle cures without surgery.
So as hundreds of thousands of Americans rushed to get the muscle-paralyzing treatment -- even those who had never before sought cosmetic procedures -- plastic surgeons and drug manufacturers were working to come up with other simple tricks to smooth aging skin. They seem to have succeeded.
A new generation of injectable substances -- used to treat facial lines, scars and depressions -- has begun hitting the market. The products, which actually fill in deep wrinkles and small imperfections, are expected to lure the sizable Botox crowd even farther down the path toward eternally youthful skin. Two fillers have recently been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and several more are awaiting approval. They work in slightly different ways, but all are an improvement over bovine collagen, the filler of choice for the past decade, doctors say.
Not only do the new fillers last longer than traditional collagen injections -- some are even permanent -- they don't pose the risk of headaches the way Botox injections do."Botox has drawn a lot of people into the cosmetic dermatologist's office who hadn't come in before, and I think the new fillers will draw even more people in," says Dr. Leslie Baumann, a Miami dermatologist who has investigated several of the new fillers. "People who are used to paying $500 for Botox won't have sticker shock."
The botulinum toxin -- Botox for short -- is used primarily to prevent expression lines from forming during facial movement, such as the smile lines around the mouth and those that form between the eyebrows. Fillers actually plump up deeper lines (at least temporarily), most notably the folds that run from nose to mouth and mouth to chin.
Fillers also are used for lip augmentation and to fill acne scars and sunken areas of the face, such as under the eyes. Neither they nor Botox are generally used to treat fine lines and wrinkles, such as those around the eyes.
Soft implants can also be used to fill in deep lines and folds, but those products require surgery and are costly. Injectable fillers require no surgery, little recovery time and they're significantly cheaper.
