Five Botox and Filler Myths Busted by a Board-Certified Plastic Surgeon (Ep. 93)

I'm Dr. Jason Hall, board-certified plastic surgeon and author of The Art of Aging. Today, I'm busting the top 5 myths surrounding Botox and dermal fillers. Whether you’re curious about wrinkle prevention, worried about looking “fake,” or wondering if injectables are safe, this episode gives you real, no-fluff answers straight from the source.

You’ll learn:

• What Botox actually treats and what it doesn’t
• The truth about filler longevity (hint: it’s not what the ads say)
• Why looking fake has more to do with your injector than the product
• When to start facial rejuvenation (it’s not about age, it’s about anatomy)
• What you should know about safety and complications

If you’ve ever considered non-surgical facial treatments or want to understand what’s happening behind the scenes in med spas and aesthetic clinics, this is your episode.

Grab my book → The Art of Aging on Amazon

Have a question or show idea?

DM me on Instagram @drjasonhall or email info@drjasonhall.com

Transcript

Dr. Jason Hall: 0:36

Are you tired of wasting money on skincare products and treatments that don't work? Or are you afraid of looking unnatural after having some non surgical treatments done? If you are then my new book, The Art Of Aging, is for you. In The Art Of Aging, I break down the aging process and talk about treatments that target specific parts of the aging process, what works and what doesn't. Also, I lay out a biology based skin care and non surgical treatment plan that will keep you looking great without looking fake. Check out your copy of The Art Of Aging on Amazon or in any of your local booksellers. All right, you can't look on social media without seeing something about Botox and fillers. The problem is, is that there is tons of misinformation out there about both of those things. So this show, what we're going to talk about is what you need to know and why. Hi and welcome to The Trillium Show. I'm Dr Jason Hall, board certified plastic surgeon, author of the new book The Art Of Aging, which is out on Amazon, got a link in the description below, one click and you're there. So Botox and fillers are hugely popular in the non surgical esthetic world. There's their med spas opening on every street corner. You can buy this pretty much anywhere from almost anybody, especially you live in the state of Tennessee, where we don't really have laws about who can and can't inject. Pretty much anybody can do it, as long as their supervising physician lets them, which means pretty much anybody can do it. So what do you need to know about Botox and fillers? You know, there's a lot of myth out there about it, and why. So one of the big myths about Botox specifically, which is botulinum toxin. There's a bunch of Botox is kind of a brand name. It's Allergan's name. It's kind of become the coke of the neurotoxin world. There are other ones out there, Dysport, Jeuveau, Xeomin, you name it. But what do they do? What they do is they soften lines and wrinkles, specific lines and wrinkles by weakening the muscles that cause them. So they're not a treatment for every line and wrinkle out there. They're only treat used to treat lines and wrinkles that are the result of motion. So think crow's feet. Think forehead lines. Think your 11 lines. We can use them in other parts of the face to do different things. You know, kind of boost a droopy smile temporarily, but the crow's feet, elevens and forehead lines really are kind of where they where Botox shines so it does not erase all lines and wrinkles. You've got to go back listen to the podcast. We're talking about the different kinds of lines and wrinkles, and you can hear about the whats and the whys of that one. But Botox isn't just for lines and wrinkles. We use it for all sorts of different things. It's used to treat certain types of headaches, migraine headaches. It's also used to treat excessive sweating, so palms, underarms being the two big areas, because not only does it relax muscles, but that same neurotransmitter that the toxin attaches to also causes you to sweat. And so if you inject areas that are sweating too much under arms, specifically, we can turn off those sweat glands temporarily, and it's a great treatment for sweating. I think one of the second things that's important to know about Botox, but this one's really more filler related, is that fillers make you look fake, and that really could not be further from the truth. I'm a surgeon. I operate the surgeon, surgical community has kind of come out pretty hard against filler and people who are who are seeking to have facial rejuvenation surgery and the your traditional hyaluronic acid filler. So the gel fillers that are the most common ones out there that are used are good treatments for early volume loss. And again, we talked about the, you know, in a previous podcast, talked about the four components of facial aging, volume loss being one of them, and fillers do a good job at replacing small amounts of missing volume. You probably have seen a whole lot more good filler results out there when you're at the grocery store, when you're out with your friends, then you have seen bad fill. The bad filler jumps out at you. It's pretty easy to spot duck lips, these people that look alien with these big cheeks. You. These unnatural, blown out jaw lines. Those are easy to pick out. The good ones, which I would argue are far more common. You don't even notice. And so just because somebody suggests a filler doesn't mean you're going to look fake. That's something you have to talk about. Look at your injector first. If they look weird, that's a bad sign that they think weird is pretty but, you know, talk to them about what you're looking and go slow. But fillers don't by themselves, make you look fake. The injector does. The third myth that I've heard floating around the internet there is that things like Botox and fillers are permanent, and it's just not true. They're not Botox and its equivalents, disport and juveau, really only last about three to four months. You start seeing them slowly wear off over the over the span of about three to four months. And so the the nice thing about that is that if you don't like it, it goes away, and you don't have to do it again. Or if it looks weird, it goes away. I personally had somebody talk me into doing Botox one time in an area where I don't normally treat it was my crow's feet, and I ended up looking like the dude from one of the Marvel movies for about three months, and now it was Halloween, and I looked a little mean, and so it was kind of cool, but I haven't done it again, but you know, and I knew going into it that if it looked weird, it would wear off, and it did. Likewise, fillers are not a permanent solution to volume loss. They're temporary. Now, they're a lot longer lasting than the filler companies would have you believe. They tell you, you know, six months, maybe 12 months, maybe year and a half. Maybe there was a really interesting study that came out of France, you know, mid 2024 where the investigators did MRI studies on patients who had had these HA gel fillers in Europe, and were told that, oh, they go away in a year, year and a half, and they saw evidence of filler in people's faces 15 years after their injections, and so these last a lot longer than you think they do. Little personal anecdote, I had a little filler put in my cheeks about eight years ago. I've never had it done again, and I don't feel like I need it. Now, you may argue with me, but you know, I really think that the HA fillers last a lot longer than they're sold. And is why, when we're talking about facial rejuvenation surgery, make a point to make sure that we haven't had filler done, certainly recently, but anytime in the distant past. Because if you have, I can use an ultrasound find that filler, dissolve it before surgery. So we have kind of a blank slate. We know what we're dealing with, and can replace that volume that's gone with your own body fat, which is a much more long lasting natural filler, as opposed to an HA gel. The fourth myth out there, and I think this is really popular in terms of facial rejuvenation in general, is that only old people need it, and that couldn't be further from the truth. You know, when we're when I'm talking with patients in the office, one question that always comes up is, you know, am I too young? Am I too old for whatever it is that we're talking about and the answer really is what we're no because what we're really doing when we're talking about facial rejuvenation, when we're talking about either non surgical or surgical treatments, is we're treating your anatomy. We're not treating your chronological age. There are young patients who have genetic early volume loss. They don't have high cheekbones, they don't have a lot of fat in the mid part of their face, and so they start seeing eye bags at in their 20s or 30s, and we can treat that age really isn't much of an issue. Anatomy is. Final myth that I want to talk about today is that these, all these non surgical treatments, you know, toxins, fillers, are unsafe. And I think the easy way, the easy answer to that, is that they are FDA approved for specific uses. And while you can argue whether the FDA is the final arbiter on whether something is safe, they have to undergo very rigorous trials to prove not only that they're safe, but that their work for what the company is tells you they work for. And here is where we really need to kind of take a little detour and talk about who's on the opposite end of the needle, who's doing the injections. Because a lot of the problems from both toxins and fillers come from treatments that are either not really well thought out. Somebody's practicing, you know, what I call Burger King medicine, where, you know, you get it your way right away, and it may not be the right thing for you, and so you really have to. That's where, you know, I spend a lot of time in the book talking about the importance of getting a solid diagnosis before you start treating anything. It's important that you and whoever it is that you're seeing have the same eye that you understand both you and they understand what it is that bothers you and what it is you're trying to treat before you start injecting or operating on anything. So, you know, do you hear about complications from toxins and fillers? Certainly, you know some of the most common things you hear about from toxins, swelling, which you're getting an injection, it's going to swell, not much, but it's going to swell. You may get some bruising, which, again, rare with toxin, but can happen. And you know, the kind of the no goes are if you're pregnant, you know, we don't do that while you're pregnant. Or if you have certain things, you know, like the history of myasthenia gravis. If you have it, you know, don't get Botox. And then with fillers, you know, you can have reactions, although they're fairly inert. And so reactions to fillers are not common. Most often, people complain about swelling. People complain about the filler being put in the wrong place. You can feel it. And, you know, those things can happen. The nice thing about the HA fillers, there's an enzyme out there called hyaluronidase. Say that three times fast that can dissolve those fillers, and we can, we can essentially get rid of them. So, you know, to kind of wrap things up. You know, this was a kind of a short show talking about myths and misconceptions about common non surgical treatments, toxins and fillers. I hope you found this entertaining, educational, if you have any questions, if you have any comments or have any ideas for other shows, DM me on Instagram @drjasonhall, shoot me an email info@drjasonhall.com, and I will see you on the next show.