Can You Use Botox for Muscle Spasms?
Botulinum Toxin (Botox) can be used to stop muscle spasms. A muscle spasm is when your muscle contracts or moves on its own, and it can feel like twitching. Muscle spasms can be painful if severe.
Botox may be considered to treat certain muscle contractions, such as, twitching on the face or eyelids, eye movement disorders, such as a lazy eye, and cervical dystonia, which is a muscle spasm that causes the head and neck to twist or turn.
Botulinum Toxin can also be used to treat other problems, such as chronic migraines, and excessive sweating.
How Does Botox Help Treat Muscle Spasms?
Botox can help treat muscle spasms, by being injected directly into the muscle. There are many parts of the body where Botox is used to treat muscle spasms, we have listed some examples below.
Botox treatment for muscle spasms in the back:
Paravertebral spasms are involuntary movements that occur along the back when the back muscles are injured or irritated. Muscle spasms can also occur if you have torn ligaments, or there is an infection, hernia, or tumour.
Muscle spasms in the back are caused by the disc pressing against the ligaments that it is holding in place. This can cause severe pain, due to the nerves in the ligaments, which results in the muscle spasms. The muscles spasm in an attempt to ease the pain, but in the long term, it can result in more pain.
How does Botox ease the pain and stop the muscle spasms?
When Botox is injected into the muscles, it blocks the signals sent from the brain to tell the muscles to contract. Botox can help to keep the muscles relaxed for anywhere from three to six months at a time. In some cases, it is hoped that the muscle will be able to contract normally after Botox treatment, without pain or spasms. Botox therapy has little to no recovery time, so that patients can return to normal life straight away. Similarly, Botox treatment can also be used in the neck to treat neck muscle spasms.
Botox treatment for muscle spasms in the legs:
Muscle spasms or cramps can affect any muscles. Muscle spasms often occur in the thighs and calves, and can be varied in intensity from mild to incredibly painful. Botox can be used to treat muscle spasms in the upper leg to relax the muscle.
Can Botox treat Blepharospasms?
Blepharospasms are eyelid movements such as twitching, which you can’t control. Eyelid twitching usually goes away on its own, but in some cases, it can be severe and long-term. In these cases, you may consider Botox therapy to help reduce the eyelid twitching. Botox can be injected into the eyelid muscles to stop the twitching. Patients tend to need follow-up injections every 3 to 4 months to prevent the eyelid muscle twitching from returning.
Benefits of Using Botox for Muscle Spasms:
There are many benefits to using Botox for muscle spasms. Firstly, Botox works by blocking the chemical signal between the nerves and the muscle. This stops the nerves from telling the muscles to contract and spasm. Botox will relieve the pain and stiffness, but there are many other benefits. For example:
- Improved balance and coordination of muscles when walking or moving (gait pattern).
- Better range of movement and motion.
- Pain in stiff muscles will reduce.
- Reduction of spasticity and ease when stretching.
- Improvement in upper arm movement for daily life.
- Botox treatment can potentially delay surgery until the patient is older.
Which Botox products are used to treat Muscle Spasms:
We have a range of Botulinum Toxin solution from top brands such as Allergan, Galderma, Merz and Croma. These products are ideal for treating muscle spasms, so we have listed some products below for you to check out.
Allergan Botox 100iu and 50iu can be used to treat deep wrinkles, but it is now popular for a wide range of medical uses, including chronic migraines and muscle spasms, such as blepharospasm. You can purchase Allergan Botox in units of 100 and 50.
Galderma’s Alluzience Botox is the first ready-to-use liquid botulinum toxin type A available in Europe. Like Allergan Botox it is great for reducing the appearance of wrinkles, but it is also frequently used to treat conditions such as neck spasms, twitching eyelids, and excessive sweating. Purchase Alluzience Dual 2 x 125iu and Alluzience Single 1 x 125iu here.
You can also purchase Galderma’s Dysport at Refine Pharma, which is specifically designed to treat muscle spasms and muscle stiffness in adults. It is also used to treat cervical dystonia, which causes your neck muscles to contract involuntarily resulting in your head turning or twisting to one side. It can also cause your head to uncontrollably tilt forwards or backwards.
What are the side effects of Botox injections?
The amount of Botox injected into the body is small enough that there should be little to no effect on the rest of the body. However, there are some common side effects that you may experience:
- Bruising, redness or swelling at the injection site,
- Weakness in the muscles that were injected,
- Flu-like symptoms,
- Droopy or crooked eyelids or eyebrows,
- Eye dryness or watery eyes.
PLEASE NOTE: The suitability of a particular product for a patient is a personal professional prescribing decision based on the consultation to identify suitability of any product or treatment. Where one is available, always check the Summary of Product Characteristics for recommended use for each medicinal product: https://www.medicines.org.uk/
