It often amazes me how long it takes researchers to figure out that everything in the body is connected. It now appears that when Botox is injected into your forehead, it can travel along the nerve pathways and end up in the brainstem.

Neurons at the injection site—the whisker muscles—absorbed some of the toxin and passed it along to other neurons they connected to, the researchers report this month in The Journal of Neuroscience. Within three days, the toxin had migrated from the whisker muscles to the brainstem, where it disrupted neuronal activity.

Super! Not to mention the unapproved (but legal?!?!?) use of Botox injections for children with cerebral palsy to decrease muscle spasms.

An analysis of the FDA’s database by the advocacy group Public Citizen found 16 deaths from Botox or Myobloc. Most involved children with serious diseases like cerebral palsy, who got the injections for muscle spasms (an unapproved, though legal, use).

As stated in one of my all time favorite (and most watched) movies, Connie and Carla:

Let your eyes crinkle, let your skin wrinkle. Our lines show that we’ve lived.
If he doesn’t love you when you look like a map, tell him to hit the road.

Read the full article in Newsweek here