The Blog The Wellness Nerd: ‘Bending Over After Botox’

Health and wellness website TheWellnessNerd.com questioned our Medical Director of Contour Clinics Dr Josh about a common query posed by recipients of anti-wrinkle treatments: “Bending over after Botox – is this ok to do?”

[The following is an excerpt from the article by The Wellness Nerd]:

If you’re having Botox, your injector may tell you not to bend over after treatment – but why is this, how long do you have to stay upright – and what counts as bending? Can you tie a shoe, pick up a sock? And what happens if you forget? We asked all these questions to an expert…

Botox works by blocking the release of a chemical called acetylcholine, which causes your muscles to contract.

When acetylcholine can’t do its job the muscles stay relaxed and that, in turn, relaxes wrinkles caused by muscular tension like crow’s feet and the ’11’ lines between your brows.

For this to happen properly, the Botox needs to be in the right area. “But bending too far, too long, could potentially spread the toxin further than the intended area,” says Dr Josh Wall from Contour Clinics in Sydney.

This could mean one of two things – less Botox goes into the nerve junctions which means you don’t get as an effective relaxation of the right muscle, or, rarely, that some sneaks into the wrong area which might lead to relaxing of the wrong muscle. Neither of these is going to create your desired result.

The other possibility, according to Dr Wall, is that, because bending forward (or backwards) can cause blood to rush to the face, you might also increase your risk of bruising.

But What Do We Mean by Bending?

Can you tie a shoe, pick up something you dropped – pet your puppy? What actually classes as bending over after Botox?

“Look, spending a few seconds to pick up an object or tie a shoelace isn’t going to be such an issue,” says Dr Wall. “However, repeated or longer sessions of bending movements where blood rushes to the face, such as those in strength or cardio exercises, Pilates, yoga, stretches or other physical movement routines, can be a risk for causing the anti-wrinkle product to migrate.”

Ideally you should wait 24 hours to do any kind of workout after Botox anyway, but definitely off the menu during that time are moves like downward dog, headstands, crab pose, cartwheels or touching your toes.

[end of excerpt]

What if you DID bend over after your anti-wrinkle treatment? Find out what Dr Josh has to say about that and more, by reading the full article by The Wellness Nerd.

Read the full article here.