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Botulinum Toxin - Botox^® and Dysport^®:

Botulinum Toxin is a very specific natural poison that in nature is made by a bacterium called Clostridium Botulinum. In nature, this calls the condition called Botulinism.

This is the poisoning you can get from eating rotting fish and some other foods that have gone rotten. When taken in massive doses as when a poisoning happens, the toxin blocks the nerves that make you breathe and move, causing you to suffocate.

However advances in the pharmaceutical industry have allowed very pure Botulinum Toxin to be made - Botulinum Toxin A.

This precise method of manufacture means that minute doses can then be given very accurately, in measured doses, for medical uses. These doses are large enough to have a local effect where injected, but are far too small to have any effect away from the area of injection, such as on the breathing or movement.

When a nerve meets the thing it has to communicate with, the junction between the two is called a "synapse".

In sweating, the synapse where the sympathetic nerves meet the sweat glands can be blocked by Botulinum toxin. As the sweat glands are in the skin itself, injection of a solution of Botulinum Toxin into the skin causes a blocking of the impulses from the sympathetic nervous system and so sweating should stop.

In reality, the clinical situation is not quite the same as the theory. Clinical research studies have shown that the sweating rarely stops completely - however the amount of sweating is reduced by three to four times that which you sweat normally.

This large reduction usually results in the treated patients going from an unacceptable level of sweating to a very small amount which is easily coped with. 

The body slowly makes new ends for the nerves making new synapses that work again. These take over the role of the synapses that are blocked and so sweating can return after 4 - 9 months.

Further injections can be given as required to block these new synapses - each subsequent injection reduces sweating for 6 - 12 months, provided a FULL DOSE is given.

At The Whiteley Clinic we usually use Dysport^® - as we find that this spreads through the skin well and gives a very nice result.

• Dose - Dysport^® = 500 Units

Occasionally we will use Botox^® instead. This works very similarly, but the full dose is measured differently:

• Dose - Botox^® = 100 units

Some clinics or doctors give lower doses than these - there is no obvious reason to do so, except to make sure the patient comes back quicker for another treatment.

Therefore each patient should always ask what dose of Botulinum Toxin (Botox^® or Dypsort^®) they are having and, if less than those written above, should ask why.

NB: We don't give Botulinum Toxin to females who might be pregnant or who are breast feeding. You will be asked these questions before any treatment is offered.