Avoiding Upper Face Neurotoxin Complications

This notebook guards against the complications of botulinum toxin injections on the upper face. If you want the substance itself first, there is general background on botulinum toxin.

PubMed Central lists the problems this way: "The main complications secondary to BoNT injections on the upper face are: ptosis of eyelid or eyebrow, eyebrow asymmetry, diplopia, Lakeophthalmos", and also names "Palpebral ectropion, and prominence of the palpebral bags."

For clinicians in and around Parsippany, New Jersey who are about to take a first toxin course, that list is a fair checklist of what a course should prepare you to avoid.

Four notebooks on upper-face toxin trouble

Start with the structure, then move to what happens when it is ignored.

Respecting safety zones on the upper face covers the safety zones on the upper face.

Eyebrow ptosis and brow asymmetry covers two of the listed complications, eyebrow ptosis and brow asymmetry.

Common neurotoxin side effects covers the side effects a clinician should be ready to explain.

Distant spread of toxin effect covers effects that appear away from the injection site. MedlinePlus keeps a general page on botulism for readers who want that context.

A plan for the frontalis, glabella and crow's feet

On avoidance, PubMed Central is specific: "To avoid such complications, it is necessary to have knowledge of the anatomy of this region and adequate and individualized planning based on the existing patterns of the frontalis muscle, glabella, and crow's feet."

Before treating a patient, a clinician should be able to show that plan for the individual face in front of them. Toxin and filler work happen on the same face, so the filler literature is a useful neighbor: a literature review and meta-analysis of vascular complications after facial filler injection and a paper on complications after cosmetic periocular filler cover the filler side of that work.