Experience with Botox

[joana]

Hello! I am a regular visitor of this forum and finally decided to post. This forum has helped me a great deal with getting informed for my whole situation so far. I am a 40 year old woman and 19 months ago i had a facial neurinoma (30x16 mm) surgery. Post-operation i have had balance problems, chronic tinnitus, left SSD and have developed facial palsy. Now, 19 months later i have a normal face while resting but i still cannot smile. I have also developed several synkinesis. Now i want to try some botox treatments but i am afraid it might be too late or too early. If anyone has any information or experience with botox treatment in dealing with sykinesis any insight would be helpful.
Thanks in advance

[Debbi]

Hi Joana,

I am 5 years post op with about 85% recovery of facial nerve.  I developed synkinesis at about a year and at 2 years, went to see Jackie Diels at U of WI  for 3 days of intensive facial therapy.  I have since seen her several more times and have gotten very good results from my work with her.  I tried botox for the first time last spring, under her supervision.  Although I did see some improvement, when the botox wears off (for me, about 6-8 months) things go back to where they were pre-botox.  So, I probably won't do it again (partly because I don't want to fight with my insurance company.)  That said, I did find that the injections in my neck really did help (short term) with the pain and tightness in my face. And that irritating chin-dimple went away completely until the shots wore off.   

Feel free to PM me if you want to ask more questions, or if you want to chat.

Debbi