Is it possible to relax forehead lines AND lift the brow with Botox?

Hello Dr. Irwin love the site :) Botox question here. Is it possible to relax the forehead lines AND create a brow lift at the same time? If so....how does this work? Thank you in advance for your answer and this great site, you are appreciated!

Yes …… but only to a certain point.  Many people who have ‘hooding’ (that excess skin) of the upper eyelid, use the forehead muscle (the frontalis) to pull up the eyebrows.  By activating the forehead muscle up, it creates the illusion of eyes that are more open, even when there’s hooding. Unfortunately, all that forehead activation creates more lines on the forehead. 

It’s easy to get a little lift under the lateral eyebrows with Botox.  The hard part is to relax the forehead lines without relaxing them so much that the whole brow drops down and makes the hooding worse and the forehead feel heavy.  There’s almost always a trade off and depends partly on your age and anatomy.  And, it usually doesn’t work to just relax the center of the brow and lift under the lateral.  That’s when you often see that weird, surprised ‘Mr. Spock’  (Star Trek) effect.

Good doctors will look closely at your own particular anatomy and muscle patterns and advise you.  I would trust doctors who are honest about this and explain the limitations of this technology if you have hooding and this applies to you.     Hope this helps!  Dr. I

Dr. Brandith Irwin, MD

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Hi, I’m Dr. Irwin. I believe that consumers deserve a medically trained and unbiased skin care advocate.

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