Which botulinum toxin product to use Botox®, Dysport®, or Xeomin®
There are three mainstream products that designed to help reduce wrinkles and frown lines:
All three are injectable products that are in the same class in medications known as botulinum toxins. They all work by temporarily and locally paralyzing the targeted muscle to help reduce wrinkles and fine line production.
It’s tough to know which product that you should use. They all claim to work the longest, have the fastest onset of action and leave patients with the least frozen and most natural look. Most physicians will be happy to use any of the products. Most have a preference. That preference is almost always due to experience with that individual product and not necessarily any medication differences. It’s just what they feel most comfortable with and know the exact number of units that they typically get good results with.
Physicians will switch products sometimes when a patient doesn’t have that expected result with the product that they just used. All the manufacturers say that the product starts working within 24 to 48 hours but full results really aren’t achieved for at least one to two weeks.
Here’s a few considerations to know about when you’re trying to make the decision about which product to use.
Botox has the most name recognition. It’s been around the longest and most of the studies have been done on Botox. Both Botox and Dysport have protective proteins around them. Xeomin does not. This relates to the science in pharmacology of their make up.
Xeomin is lighter and it might work faster. Xeomin is naked so theoretically, it has more efficacy since there are no protective proteins masking it’s ability to produce the intended effect. However, it’s smaller and since it has a less of a protective barrier, it might diffuse easier increasing the likelihood of spreading to more unintended areas. Xeomin also claims to have less allergic reactions since it doesn’t have any of these protective proteins.
As a side note, Xeomin also says that it does not need to be refrigerated like the other two products. To me, they all behave the same.
In short, these three injectable products are all members of the same class in medications. They behave similarly and they have similar lengths of time that they last. Now, there’s fierce marketing campaigns that try to differentiate the three but there are no real discernible differences. Only theoretical. I hope that helps.
If you have any other questions, you can email us at info@doctorundavia.com or visit us at our website at drundavia.com.