What Is Dental Botox?
When Botox was introduced in a purified form, cosmetic technicians began to inject it into their clients’ facial muscles. The toxin temporarily paralyzed these muscles so that they could not contract. This had the effect of causing lines and wrinkles to become smooth. These properties can work for several dental conditions as well, so the Food and Drug Administration approved Botox for their treatment. Dentists can now offer their patients dental Botox to treat various dental conditions.
Who Is Right for Dental Botox?
Botox isn’t for everyone unless you’re looking for cosmetic procedures. If you are experiencing any of the following dental conditions, you would be right for dental Botox:
Bruxism
Bruxism is a condition in which you grind or clench your teeth. Some people thrust their jaws forward with this condition. They engage in these behaviors when they are awake, but they can also do them when they are asleep. Bruxism is a serious condition because it can lead to other dental maladies, including the locking of the joints, pain in the muscles, and TMJD. It also wears down your teeth.
Botulinum toxin causes the muscles to relax after injection into a muscle, so the muscles cannot contract. Botox relieves this condition by reducing the biting pressure in your masticatory muscle by as much as 20% to 30%. Botox proved to be more effective at treating this issue than cognitive-behavioral therapy, medications, or occlusal splints.
Tension-Type Headaches
A tension-type headache is a headache that occurs frequently. This ache affects the temporal and occipital regions of the head. A headache of this type lasts for 30 minutes each day, but it can also present itself 15 days out of a month. These headaches occur at this rate for three months.
After patients in a study received Botox injections in the masseter muscle, they found that this diminished the intensity of the pain. It also lowered the number of days per month that they experienced these headaches and decreased the number of hours that they suffered from them as well.
Hemifacial Spasms
This condition is characterized by twitching of the lower facial muscles. When a dentist injects Botox into these muscles, these hyperactive muscles become temporarily paralyzed. Because 95% of patients with hemifacial spasms state that Botox injections relieve their symptoms, dentists use this treatment for patients presenting with hemifacial spasms in large numbers. As many as 89% of subjects noticed improvement in their symptoms after the Botox injections, but dentists do not consider Botox to be a cure for hemifacial spasms.
Sialorrhea
Sialorrhea is when the salivary glands produce copious amounts of saliva. Excessive saliva production causes several medical conditions, including peri-oral skin infections, tooth decay, oral infections, and aspiration pneumonia. Dental practitioners found that, when they inject Botox into the patient’s submandibular and parotid salivary glands, they reduce the overproduction of saliva in less than four weeks. These injections do this by disrupting the salivary glands’ autonomic innervation, and this stops the salivary glands from producing so much saliva. These results last about three months.
