The Time Dr. Schmidt Got BOTOX®

It’s been several years but, yes, I have had BOTOX®. It was during the final year of my residency, when I was acting as chief resident. I knew I was going into facial plastic surgery, and I felt I needed to know what BOTOX® was all about. I had one of the other residents do a treatment for me. The needle stung a little bit, but the procedure itself was not that bad. The next day my facial muscles ached a bit, kind of like when your muscle aches after getting a vaccine.

For the first few days after my BOTOX® treatment, I didn’t notice anything different. Then all of a sudden, I realized I couldn’t frown as much as I had before. This started around the third day after the treatment. By two weeks after the treatment, I couldn’t frown at all!

This was pretty much what I had expected. But to my surprise, BOTOX® made me feel better in other ways. I had been suffering from headaches above my left eye for months of my chief year, and I soon realized that the BOTOX® had cured me! I guess I had been subtly frowning because of stress, which was giving me a tension headache. What’s even better, I actually felt more relaxed. It was almost as if there was feedback between my now relaxed facial muscles and my mood.

I’m attaching a picture of another time I got BOTOX®, this time at the end of my chief resident year, just before starting my fellowship in facial plastic surgery. That’s Dr. Anita Sethna doing a treatment for me. Photobombing us is my fellowship mentor, Dr. Godin.