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Re: Botox for Depression? » Cairo

Posted by laima on September 14, 2006, at 14:03:57

In reply to Re: Botox for Depression?, posted by Cairo on September 14, 2006, at 13:34:38


Who knows? The original pilot study was very small- 15-30 people only- something like that, and the two researchers were on a news program that I watched. I was impressed with them. They were cautious to not claim they had a "cure", but rather expressed great excitement that the great majority of their test subjects experienced dramatic and rapid dispersal of depression which had failed to respond to drug therapy. They were interested in "microexpressions"- ie, notion that if one is chronically frowning, one feels bad as well as the the notion that an unfriendly looking person is less approachable, and often has a harder time socially. However, though pressed by the interviewer, they made no claims about by what kind of mechanism this phenomena was working out--but that they were very eager to do more studies.

Also- I think that like drugs, not everyone will get the same response-and there are factors such as amount used, exact placement of shots, skill of administrator, etc. The people in the study had very, very furrowed brows- got the injections for vertical furrows, and you must know that the placement of the injections has to be very, very precise and individually tailored. There are a lot of thin little muscles all over the forehead: some move up, some down, some side to side---etc. I actually even learned that I appear to lack a particular muscle- the one that can crinkle the top of the nose--so it was very interesting. For the anti-depressent effect, the injections very specifically must be for vertical furrows- I have no idea if getting them elsewhere too would mess up the effect or not.

I actually lost my forehead tension headaches as well as my tendency to walk around looking worried...I am smiling a lot, lot more, look much more at ease, and keep getting a lot of comments such as, "You look great! Really healthy! Outside all summer? Things going well?" etc. I don't have any real wrinkles yet, nor was my brow permanently or even severly furrowed- I could keep smoothing it out with my hand- but with so much on my mind, it just seemed to chronically go to "scrunched" as I thought about stuff. I also got the newer "dilute" version of botox- it is supposed to spread more evenly and naturally into the muscle- so perhaps that is also a factor? And I only got 20 units as opposed to the "typically recommended" 30-50. (I'm in my late 30's in case that is your next question.)

Sorry it hasn't worked out for you.

Personally, I am thrilled to death, even a month later. I am also using Emsam- and have used selegeline or Emsam since January- so perhaps, by coincidence, it finally "kicked in" about 2 days after I got botox in August? But I actually think each is doing a "bit of the job".

As for pain issues- perhaps Phillipa's articles might touch on that? Or provide names of the researchers so you or someone else who is interested can google them up and get some more detail? The waiver I signed said "pain" for "about a week" typically, can be a side effect for some people.

(I note with irony, I never signed any waiver to swallow *god* knows how many expensive psychiatric medications loaded with side effects...)

> I can claim just the opposite. I had Botox injections, including into my brow area, for pain control, but it made my pain worse and therefore my depression got worse.
>
> I wonder if those people who had improvement in their depression from Botox had pain issues which were helped by the injections.
>
> Cairo
>
>
> > Have you heard of this? Love Phillipa Botox cures depression when injected in the brow area.
> >
> > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/20/AR2006052000979.html
>
>


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poster:laima thread:684854
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060909/msgs/685941.html