Botox vs Dysport: What Patients Should Know | Neuromodulators Explained | Vitality Unfiltered

Host: David J. Bauder, PA-C
 Co-Host: Stephanie Lattimore
 Guest: Alicia Sanderson, MD

In this episode of Vitality Unfiltered, we explore one of the most widely used treatments in aesthetic medicine: neuromodulators, including Botox and Dysport.

As these treatments continue to grow in popularity, many patients are seeking a clearer understanding of how they work, how the products differ, and what results they should realistically expect. Despite their widespread use, misconceptions about neuromodulators remain common—particularly around dosing, longevity, and the fear of appearing “frozen.”

David J. Bauder, PA-C, founder of Weight Loss & Vitality, along with co-host Stephanie Lattimore and guest Dr. Alicia Sanderson, facial plastic surgeon and otolaryngologist, break down the science behind neuromodulators and how they are used to create natural, balanced results.

A key concept discussed throughout this episode is that aesthetic outcomes are not primarily determined by the product itself, but by the precision of the injector, the patient’s anatomy, and a thoughtful treatment approach.

Understanding how neuromodulators interact with facial muscles allows patients to approach treatment with greater clarity and confidence.

In This Episode We Discuss

• How Botox and Dysport work to relax targeted facial muscles
 • The clinical differences between Botox and Dysport
 • Which areas of the face are commonly treated and which should be approached cautiously
 • How dosing is determined and why unit comparisons can be misleading
 • What influences how long results last
 • The meaning behind the term “frozen” and how it can be avoided
 • The role of facial anatomy and muscle strength in treatment planning
 • Why individualized treatment plans are essential
 • How injector technique impacts safety and outcomes
 • The importance of precision in achieving natural results

Key Takeaway

Neuromodulators like Botox and Dysport are powerful tools for reducing dynamic wrinkles, but optimal results depend on precision, anatomical understanding, and individualized treatment planning. When performed correctly, these treatments enhance appearance while maintaining natural expression.

Contact Weight Loss & Vitality

📞 Call: 571-550-9000
 🌐 Visit: weightlossandvitality.com

About Vitality Unfiltered

Vitality Unfiltered is a medical podcast exploring the science of hormones, longevity, metabolism, weight loss, aesthetics, and precision medicine.

Each episode provides clinical insight from healthcare professionals who treat these conditions every day.

Our goal is simple: to help people better understand the biology of their health so they can make informed decisions about wellness, prevention, and long-term vitality.

Disclaimer

This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Listening to this episode does not establish a provider-patient relationship. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional regarding medical concerns, diagnosis, or treatment.

⚠️ Disclaimer
This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Listening to this episode does not establish a provider-patient relationship. Always consult your qualified healthcare professional regarding medical concerns, diagnosis, or treatment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Vitality.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Vitality Unfiltered.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Unfiltered.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

With David Bowder. Welcome back to another episode of Vitality Unfiltered. Today's topic, Botox, neuromodulators. We're going to get to the heart of how these products work. We're going to describe the physiology or the pharmacinetics of them and how them how they actually work inside the muscle. We're going to try to give the listeners everything they need to know. With me today, Dr. Alicia Sanderson, double board certified facial plastic surgeon, head and neck surgeon. And with me also is my co-host, nurse practitioner Stephanie Lattimore. To start off the conversation, I want to just pull out and describe to the audience how these how these products work within the muscle fibers. Stephanie, you want to go ahead?

SPEAKER_03 0:50

Sure. Let me take a stab at it, and Dr. Sanderson can uh swoop in to add anything. Botox. So neurotoxins such as Botox, probably it's gotta be the most popular. It's been around the longest. They work as neuromodulators. So they are going to interrupt that chemical message, messenger, um, acetylcholine, which tells the muscle fibers to contract. Um they're gonna stop that process and therefore relax that muscle, giving that smooth appearance and preventing those dynamic um lines from forming on the face.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

So I've had some patients that are completely resistant to resistant to it. Yes. So what's the what's the process behind that that is is causing that?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Antibody formation. So some people will actually form antibodies. Now, there are some people that have had one in two doses of Botox and their body will form an antibody to the toxin. So then the toxin can't bind to the end of the nerve and it doesn't function. Definitely with chronic use of Botox, you can get, you know, you'll see like a Botox resistance. And I've seen this in my patients uh a lot. And sometimes by switching to a different version, like from going from Botox to dysport or dysport to something else, you can get a little bit of function. But with long-term use of Botox, you can definitely get some antibody resistance. So immediate resistance I've seen probably, you know, here and there that um can happen. But definitely with long-term use, I do see people who get it's less resistance, less of an effect.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Are you getting most people? Are they coming in asking for Botox when you're doing or do they do they stipulate Botox versus desport?

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Yes and no. So it's very interesting. Um a lot of my newer clients assume Botox is all that's out there, right? That is kind of they use tox online. It's kind of trendy as the your classical um neuro modulator, neurotoxin. Um, I have had dysport patients come and specifically ask for dysport. They know how many units they want. When it comes to the difference between the two, um, they're both botulinum toxin, botulinum A. Dysport's still been around a long time now. I think of diffusion as the biggest difference between the two. Um in my practice, when I um am targeting a patient's really specific Proseris, the 11s, maybe some really specific crow's feet, um, really strong crow's feet, I'll probably encourage the use of Botox for like really targeting some really deep static lines. For a more diffuse spread across the frontalis, I'll probably go for disport. But it's really up to patient preference, their concerns and what I'm targeting. Um, it's more important to be precise with the technique than the actual product choice itself.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Do you find a difference in Botox or DIS port?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Um No, I think they're very much similar. And the thing is that they so what are we doing with a neurotoxin? We're actually weaken the muscle and we're reshaping the face. So our face is a collection of different muscles that we can make facial expressions with. So understanding how the face works, how we elevate our brows, frown runs. So Botox is facial sculpting. And I think that a lot of it is, you know, oh, you have, you know, a wrinkle, let's put Botox here and it'll stop the wrinkle. You need to understand why that wrinkle is forming. And then you you you actually put the Botox into that muscle to weaken it to get the sculpting. And I think that that's where it's really important when we talk about precision. We need to know the muscle in what we're doing. So to make the 11s, it's the corrugator. So there's a muscle that attaches here and goes along the upper part of the brow. And so when you make an angry face, it pulls the brow together and you get the 11s. So if you put whatever neurotoxin you pick, if you precisely put it into the belly of the muscle, so I'll have people, you know, furrow their brow and lift it up, you put it in there, then you don't need as much Botox because you're not looking for, you know, you're not just putting it in and hopefully it gets to the muscle. You put it actually into the muscle where it needs to be. When you're doing the forehead, you're looking at the frontalis muscle. Now, the function of the frontalis muscle is to elevate the brows up. So when we want to weaken that so we don't have wrinkles forming across here, you are causing the primary elevator of the eyebrows to weaken. Well, what's gonna happen if you put that in the wrong spot? It's gonna go down. So, what you want to do is very precise amounts in the higher level of the forehead so you can smooth and decrease the function of the brow without dropping the central portion and getting that cling-on look. Um, we talk about Botox and you know, Botox lifting our brows. So, how is that how is Botox lifting our brows? We have a circular muscle that sits around the eye called the obicularis oculi. And the lateral portion of that will actually pull the lateral portion of the brow down. So put by precisely putting a small amount of a neurotoxin into that muscle, the frontalis muscle that pulls the brow up will automatically lift that brow up. So, what we're doing is we're using the Botox to sculpt the face by precisely putting it into the muscles that shape the face. And it works wonderful for facial paralysis to balance people's symmetry. If people have natural asymmetries, you can know that. What happens if you put too much Botox in and around the eye or up high, you'll get a spoke look, right? The eyebrow will go up because that's where the lateral frontalis is pulling up too high. So a small amount of Botox in that area will actually drop that brow down and put it in a more neutral position. If you put it without treating underneath here and you put it in the lateral area, you're gonna hood and sag down on the eyes. So understanding the musculature and where it is, you precisely put the Botox where it needs to be, and then you'll get the effect that you want.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Are there any areas on the face that absolutely avoid?

SPEAKER_00 6:58

So I am not a fan of you can do perioral, and I will do a little bit of perioral, which is around the mouth, but to get enough Botox in and around the mouth to weaken that muscle, you're changing the function of the mouth. Understand that the facial muscles are really important for function, right? We need oral competency in there. So a lot of people will do Botox around the around the mouth to help with those wrinkles, and it will help a little bit and soften them a little bit. I much prefer to do a laser resurfacing around there to help with those wrinkles, or to put in like a really light or thin filler to help with that. But um, you know, putting a little bit in here can soften it, but you be careful. People will talk about nasal labial lines. You that is not a the this is more of a filler location. This is more of a uh what we call a static or an established line in there. But if you start weakening this muscle, you're not gonna be able to smile, you're not gonna be able to symmetry. And uh normal f facial function is incredibly important.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah, every time I've done uh the periorbal Botox, I'll I'll tell the patient, yeah, I'll be like, look, you might have trouble using a straw.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

And oh, I'll be fine with it, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Right, right. Yeah. Right. And and and then also you look funny, right? You look funny because your lips aren't when people are talking, you're looking at your lips, you're watching, and then we read lips, right? When naturally we you think about COVID, we all wore masks. You couldn't hear what anybody's saying because we naturally have some verbal cues when we're listening to it. And it looks funny when the lips are not moving. So, really, um, you know, I am a big fan of Botox, you know, in the in the in the forehead, the head, the periorbital area. I do love it in the neck for platismal banding. And it does help a little bit with your jowls because we taught, as we talked about in one of our other episodes, the nephertidi lift, and we, you know, talked about those. But when you treat the platisma, which is the muscle of the neck, it pulls down. It also causes those neck bandings. So relaxing this muscle here will actually smooth out the neck, help a little bit with neck wrinkles, and help a little bit at the jawline. So that's another nice area to do it. You can also do Botox in really prominent masseters. So if you have people, the muscle that, you know, for chewing in there can be like big in this area. So you can put a little Botox in there, which can help feminize a jaw and soften a jaw a little bit if it needs to be in there. But I do tell my patients, if you put it in here, if you go to bite a big giant, you know, sandwich, you're gonna have a little bit of weakness of that muscle. So understand that these muscles of the face have roles and functions. And when we weaken them, you know, you you take Botox, you go outside, and you can't squint as much because we've weakened some of those muscles.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

Weakening of the um, you said the master TMJ is also makes me think of the medical, you know. We want that in people who have TMJ and jaw clenching. It can be, you know, cosmetic and medical. So And that works great.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

And so, and again, Botox has been around for a very long time, and we use it all different areas other than the face. It was initially found by um ophthalmology when they're treating blepharospasm. So, you know, when people would have twitching of the under the muscle underneath the eye, they put a little bit of Botox, but all of a sudden they realize that they didn't have wrinkles. So that's how it came about as a cosmetic treatment. Another thing, an area where you say you don't want to put it, you have to be incredibly careful putting Botox underneath the eye here. I really only do it for people who have really thick muscles or what we call hypertrophy of the muscle in there, because if you weaken the muscle underneath the eye, the lower eye will actually weaken. And then now you're disrupting the function of the lower eyelid, which is to keep, you know, keep the tears against the globe. You'll have dry eye tearing and things like that. So you do have to be careful where you place it. And whenever you go to get you know Botox done, make sure you're going to somebody who you know like understands the concepts and you know has training on you know placing the Botox.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Aaron Ross Powell Also, I think for the listeners, I think it's really I think this would be the appropriate place to bring this up is routinely we see Botox, Botox offered out there eight dollars a unit, nine dollars a unit. And this really, I think this is a fair this is a fair conversation here because I think the listeners deserve to understand that you have to be careful.

unknown 11:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Okay? You have to be careful where you're going. You really don't know I mean you can talk to this both of you, but from my point of view is you do not know where that Botox came from. Right. You don't know how the Botox is mixed. There's a certain ratio that we use. All right. You can speak to that?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

So I would I like so that's really important if people go out there. Um Botox is not done the same way by all, you know, all people. So when people people will come in and say, like, well, I had Botox done here and it didn't work. And that really doesn't mean anything to me until I do it with my hands and I know what I do, and it doesn't work for me. Um so Botox is not a is it seems like it would be a lucrative thing to do. It is not really lucrative in a facial plastic surgeon, you know, like from my aspect. The Botox is incredibly expensive, right? So our cost of the Botox is like what, like seven, eight dollars a unit just for the Botox. And that's if you get a hundred units out of a vial. And there's some wastage in the needles and the needle tips and things like that. And we're talking about tiny amounts of this. So Botox is not really lucrative because you don't have a big profit over it. So probably break-even point for Botox is maybe like what,$10 a unit, if that. And that's not including overhead and things like you would never bring in there. So when you are talking about people, you know, at less than that$10 a unit area, they have to actually be getting it from a non-reputable source, which the FDA has come out and said, you cannot do that anymore. You can't buy it overseas, you can't do that. Um, they can be diluting it down, right? So, and and again, like uh you don't want to have the loose, so you add a little bit more saline into you and you dilute it down. I don't know who's injecting it and are they putting it into the right spot? Like if you're if you're just putting it in this spot because somebody told you into that spot and you're not putting into the belly of the corrugator, then then those are you know things that you know, I don't know what they're actually doing. I will tell you also when you talk about dosing of Botox and how to go in. I have some when I train and I teach people there, I have standard dosing about the area. Everybody is a little bit different, but if you um are looking to get a standard dose of Botox that will completely stop the muscle from moving, I have standards. Some people need more, some people need less based on the bulk of the muscle, right? The more Botox you put into an area, the longer results you're gonna get. The reason why, as we talked about before with the physiology, it's affecting the nerve endings. It may not be affecting every single nerve ending. If I put more Botox in, it's going to affect more nerve endings, right? If I affect all the nerve endings and completely paralyze the muscle, it's gonna take longer for regeneration of those nerve ending, you know, fibers to come back and the muscle come back. So people will think, well, I just want to do a little bit, but then you're coming back every, you know, two months instead of every three months. A lot of my patients are on a six-month Botox schedule, right? Because I put the right amount of Botox in there. And once you do it on a regular basis, now you've, you know, overall weakened the muscle and you don't need as much to come in there. So there is an advantage to using the right amount of Botox for the right duration. If you're coming every two months to get Botox, you're gonna get faster to that resistance area of developing antibodies if you're gonna get it. If you're doing it every six months, there's you're gonna kind of push that time of potentially develop antibodies out. So there is an advantage to using the right amount of Botox in the right location.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Yeah, I do the exact same thing for like I mean, you you helped walk me through this years and years and years ago when we first when I first started working with you. And and uh I I usually do the exact same thing as um if if it's the first time I'm seeing a patient, standardized dosing, figure out what's working, the next time you know exactly where to go from there. Right. You know, it's a nice way to do it.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

Yeah, and I think that there's a lot to be said for going to a reputable place for that reason. You want a place that's gonna have you take your makeup off, maybe take some before photos, maybe bring you back in a week and take some, do a follow-up, take some after photos, see if you're happy with the work, if you want more, um, what you can make adjustments for that next procedure.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

And I tell all of my patients when I do it, because sometimes uh when I'm I always do the crow's feet, right? And I'll and I'll do and I they want that brow lift. I said, if it goes up too much, you let me know. Because sometimes I need to put a little like touch-up on one side and not the other, because I have one that are out, and then I say, How did that work? Well, I still had some function. Okay, then you need a little bit more in that area. But I think it's important to, you know, to develop with your patients. I have patients that I've been doing Botox on for like 12 years. We know exactly what it is and going in there. And that's how I realize that sometimes you do you are developing some resistance to it. Um, the other thing we want to talk about is Botox, like, what's the advantage of Botox? Is there a long-term advantage to doing Botox? When do you start Botox? Those are the, you know, a lot of the popular, you know, questions that I get when people find out that I do Botox. So I usually say the time to start Botox is when you start seeing wrinkles at rest. So when you're when you're not animating and you're not moving your facial muscles, if you start to see those etched in lines, that's probably the time to start, you know, and and you don't have to, you don't have to treat the whole face, you just treat that area that's in there. The if you do Botox on a regular basis, you will prevent wrinkles from forming. So way back when there was an article published on identical twins, they, you know, one Botox, one didn't. The one who um, you know, Botox regularly had fewer wrinkles. So regular Botox use is preventative for the use of for um for the use of wrinkles and preventing wrinkles. Long-term side effects of Botox, this pops up because everybody now, you know, nobody wants to do the Botox or Botox bad, or we have these Botox alternatives that come up and things like that, is that a long-term use of Botox does cause what we call atrophy or thinning, thinning of the muscles. That's really the goal though, right? So I, you know, like if you if you use the um Botox on a consistent basis and the muscle's not moving, the muscle's not gonna get thick, right? And it's gonna get thinner. Well, the nice thing about that is then you don't have to do Botox as regularly. So I've definitely been doing Botox for a long time. My, you know, the muscles in my forehead are definitely very thin because I've been doing it for a long time, but that's my goal because I don't have to do Botox that often in that area. So so it's a side effect, but it's potentially the side effect that a lot of people are looking for because a lot of people who do Botox don't want their face moving. They don't want it. And then we can talk about frozen you know, faces too.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

I love that answer. Um, when should I get Botox? It depends on the person. Yeah. Um, because I I see so much on the internet um that says, oh, when you're 28, when you're 32, when you, you know, 20s, 30s, and there's really no time stamp on an individual. My younger sister started getting Botox to target her 11s, her furrowed brow when she was 25. She had those lines at rest. Um my older sister's never had it. So it's it's it's more individual based than a you can't put an age on it.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yeah. And that's where it's really important, uh, you know, if you're in the cosmetic industry, that you listen to your patients, right? I mean, my patients come in and they're like, they want to be conservative. They don't want to look frozen. What's frozen? Your muscles not moving. I have other patients come in and are like, I want my forehead frozen. I want no movement in there. So you've got to listen to your patient. You've got, I highly recommend being conservative. Start out conservative, little doses, bring them back for a two-week visit. If they're like, no, I want more and I want to be frozen. That's their preference. Some people like the frozen look, some people like the natural look. When it comes to all aesthetics, you know, I joke. I mean, some people want to age, you know, gracefully, some people want to fight it all, you know, all the way. I mean, some people say, well, I would rather look like I'm done and not have wrinkles than be, you know, wrinkly and look natural, right? And and either way is fine. So we can do things with Botox where you're still natural. You still have movement in your face, but it may it's preventing those really deep wrinkles from coming. We talk about the male aesthetic, and a lot of males don't want that frozen look. Women can tolerate the frozen look, they can tolerate the high brows, they can do that. Men looking natural, they probably need a little bit of tone. They need a little bit of, you know, muscle to keep their face looking masculine in general. So I may do, as we said before, the same dose that I would do in a female muscle, which is thinner. And again, as we know, the dose based on the muscle thickness is important. So I'll do the same dose so they're not as frozen and they have a little bit of movement, but that wrinkle isn't as deep.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

From the conserv, you know, like how you mentioned, like the conservative approach, I always also think about when I'm injecting too, is like, you know, once if you drop an eyebrow, it's harder to fix that. But you can it's easier to lift it if it I mean sorry, if you drop it, you know, it's harder to get it lifted. But if you if it spocks on you, you can easily soften it. You know, so I always like err on the side of what I can fix down the road in two weeks if it doesn't how it takes. Then also how um sometimes we get patients that come into quite actually or frequently, they only want to do one area. Yep. And I uh you know, I'm not a big fan of that. I like to kind of treat the patient, right? The matrix, right? The whole thing, right? Um what is your thought on that? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

So my thought on that is you know you educate your patients. That's all about our aesthetic. You educate them, you give them the options, and then you can do what they want. Um, people do not have loyalty to Botox. So, you know, as a surgeon, I have patients that will travel far to come and see me, and I always, you know, kind of giggle because I know there's plenty of great people about around where they are, but they trust me and they want to do that. So, you know, loyalty in medicine definitely is there. There is no, there is not a lot of loyalty in Botox. People will go, you know, whoever's having the coupon or whoever's having the sale to go in and do that. So some people, you know, they know what they want, they know what they're gonna do, and they want you to go in and do it. So as long as I educate the patient for what they want and they say, nope, nope, I just want, you know, 10 units in this, you know, like in this area, I tell them 10 units is not going to give you the results you want. You know, doing it in there, if they're like, I I know it, I want it, as long as I've educated it, I'm happy to help them with that. When patients come in and say, I want 10 units and I want my whole forehead to be smooth, I say, I cannot help you with that. You know, so like so it goes through that important education. Like, don't waste your money on 10 units, because 10 units is not going to, you know, treat the whole thing. If if you know, if they've done it before, that's what they want, and they know that that's not going to have those results. So I usually talk to them and say, or if you know, if you're only 10 units, then why don't we just treat one area? Or why don't we just treat around the eyes, you know, and it's going to be limited or those. So if somebody comes in and they, you know, have like a 25 unit limit, I say, why don't you just treat one area? Because you're not going to get the whole face done. And we try and go about that, right? So you get the so education is the most important part in um in cons, you know, in the consumer and the cosmetic.

SPEAKER_03 22:44

One uh I had a recent a patient last week who um really wanted to focus on the frontalis. And I educated her that by treating the frontalis, we can get a great result, but it's actually going to make your glabella work even harder to lift and you know, to do what it to move. And then that actually might not be the outcome that you want in the end. It's best to treat the whole area. Right. You can treat, and correct me if I'm wrong, you can treat the glabella in by itself. Um but to put to target the frontalis and skip the glabella is not.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

You know, it's really it depends on it depends on what people want and what they're looking for and their goal of that area. And um again, if you want the whole because remember, I don't recommend treating the lower part of the frontalis because it's gonna drop the brow and it's gonna come down. When we treat the what we call the globeller, the area between the eyebrows and those 11s, that does help a little bit with the lower aspect and the wrinkles of the lower aspect. So depending on what they're looking for. I have had young people with one line across their forehead right here. Everything else looks good in there. I put a tiny amount of Botox like in and around that area, and it's helped. So there are some cases if they just want one thing done, I can do a little bit of a, you know, like a touch-up and and and those in there. Um, but again, like some people don't want to have all that frozen look and they don't like that. And so if you don't want the frozen look, I usually say the perfect entryway to Botox, as far as the simplest thing to do, is what we call the globella or the area between the eyes, the 11s, and the crow's feet. So when I have introduced people into Botox, and I've probably introduced all my friends into Botox, and now they're the I've never had somebody not become a Botox junkie who loves it, but I usually introduce the most conservative way is between the eyes and you know, and the crow's feet. They have that lift, they, you know, they help with the crow's feet and the smile and the pictures and the elevens, and it's definitely not a frozen look because everything else is moving around. The forehead and treating the forehead can have a little bit of a frozen um look. So if somebody is very nervous about Botox, I typically will not do their forehead on the first treatment unless they specifically are worried about, you know, forehead lines. So if I'm just introducing somebody into Botox, I recommend treating between the eyes and the crow's feet. And that's a really good introduction to Botox with little complications and um and great outcomes.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

I think we covered uh a lot of topics here. Uh it's been great, a great talk. I think we should end this with uh discussing a little bit of the perception on social media. So recently, recently there was uh I forget what it's called. It's something like facial gymnastics or something like that. Yeah, I've heard of this. So it's like this individual has like three million followers out there, right? And she's individual saying, you know, you do these certain things and you can beat Botox and look at my face. And and people people are following it, right? So let's talk that.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

So Botox is your gold standard, right? So Botox definitely works. And there's a lot of people who don't want to have needles put in their face, and there's a lot of people who it's expensive, right? Botox is expensive no matter how you how you look at it and go through. So that's the gold stand. So everything is always gonna be compared to Botox. And there's a lot of things out there that you know people are doing, and you know, creams and you know, we had talked about cosmeceuticals and things like that. Nothing's gonna really give you that Botox effects because it works, and that's the reason why it's a billion-dollar industry that's been around forever, and lots and lots of people are doing it. So, so a lot of things that claim that they're competing, they're competing because it is the gold standard. So things like, you know, like increasing the musculature of the face, right? So if you are doing, you know, the theory, and again, I I can't, there's no organized study that says that this is beneficial, but the theory is that if you're using your facial muscles, the mimetic muscles, and you're doing lots of things and making it in there, theoretically you could thicken your muscle a little bit, right? So uh essentially, if I, you know, lift weights or I do exercise, you get a little bit of thickening of your muscle. Would that kind of smooth out your face? You'd have to do a lot of, you'd have to do a lot of exercises. And by the way, when you're moving your facial muscles, you're pulling the skin. So the interesting, the only part of the body is the muscle attaches to the skin is in the face. That's how we show emotion and we go through it. So when you're doing your thickening muscle exercises of your face, you're also pulling on the skin. Well, what happens when you pull on the skin regularly? You make a wrinkle, right? You're gonna make a wrinkle. So you're trading off if you can even do the exercises enough. And remember, we're not like it's not like weightlifting where you're really gonna hypertrophy the muscles because you're increasing and ripping the muscles. You're not gonna rip the muscles by doing this. Little bit of a theory that kind of goes with that is the M sculpt, right? Or which is the the um you put electrodes on your face, stimulation. It stimulates the muscles. Now, that theoretically works because it is contracting it, what, 10,000 times a you know, a minute.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Yeah, I think it overall it's almost 30,000 contractions at the end of the year. Like of the muscle, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:16

So that I mean, right. So you're never there's no way you can contract your muscle 30,000 times doing it. So, like and so the the theory behind that is when you contract the muscle that much, it does thicken a little bit. And when you thicken underneath there, that goes back to fillers, right? We talk about fillers and the volume loss, and adding more volume to your face thickens it. So I doubt that anybody can contract their muscles that much. Be careful because you're probably wrinkling your skin when you're you know doing it all uh the time. But even if you did use it that much, it would be temporary swelling in the muscle. It wouldn't be long-term muscle hypertrophy. So as an there's so many things out there, be careful of what you you see and read. Just because lots of people are following it doesn't mean that there's you know science behind it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

Can you imagine going to the gym and everyone was just looking in a mirror, like work like working out their faces, like thinking? Yeah. So we're I think we've I think we've debunked facial gymnastics.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yeah, and I can guarantee to the listeners, there's no there's no AI or filters going on here, okay? So this is the not probably you can tell that already in the video. And that and they need and everybody should be aware of that too, is the images that they're seeing on these social media they are not real. I mean, it is this is this is heavily, heavily modified.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So everything, I mean this goes back to back in the day of because I'm old and I'm gonna date myself, but you know, models on magazines, they don't look like that, right? If they did have cellulite, it's airbrushed out, it, you know, contours are changed. There is so much editing that went into it. Now we do that on our phone. Be really careful about what you're seeing out there and what you're doing. And I think it's really unfair because our expectations are we're gonna look like these people, or we see these people on and celebrities, and I always laugh because the celebrities are like, I don't do anything. And I'm like, as as a, you know, as a trained, you know, specialist in that field, I'm like, we know that you're doing it. Just be honest about it. Say that you're doing it, and they're, you know, like, oh nothing. I'm using makeup to make my nose look smaller. You had clearly had a nose job. Just say you had a nose job. You know, because we're we're expecting young, you know, young women and young men to uh live up to a standard and look a certain way. And people come in with, you know, I want to look like my Snapchat filter. That's not reality. That's not what we can do. And and our our perception of what people are supposed to look like is so skewed via phones and filters that that um you know we have to be a little bit kind to ourselves because we can't live up to that. And what you see on social media is not real.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

That's right. All right. Well, that's a wrap. Thank you both for being here today. All right. If you enjoyed the show, please click the follow or the subscribe button below so you don't miss the next episode. Thank you for joining us today, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Thanks for joining us on Vitality Unfiltered with David Bowder. Addressing norms, busting myths, and uncovering health realities for a more vibrant life today. For more expert insights and real talk, make sure to subscribe and join us next time.