The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen recently asked the FDA to strengthen the warnings to people who inject Botox, saying dozens suffered from serious problems from the drug.

WWL-TV.com

But while the FDA is investigating the claims, Eyewitness News medical reporter Meg Farris got some safety answers from the experts.

It’s the No.1 cosmetic procedure – injecting Botox to smooth out facial wrinkles in the forehead, around the nose and mouth and neck. It’s even used to prevent wrinkles from starting.

“It occurred to me 15 years ago that the small muscles of the face, which insert into the skin, could also be paralyzed with botchulin toxin,” Otolarigologist Dr. Ronald French said. “The reason why I thought that was important is the reason why one has wrinkles is because the skin loses its elasticity and sort of loses in the battle to the pulls of the muscles that attach to it and it makes a wrinkle.”

French, a retired ear, nose and throat specialist, used Botox on his patients as far back as the 1970s for medical reasons.

He injected it to calm vocal cord problems while others were using it for eye muscle spasms. It temporarily keeps the muscle from contracting when the nerve tells it to.

French was one of the original groups of doctors who realized it could be used cosmetically after seeing a patient with a face nerve injury lose her wrinkles on that side of her face.

“I decided it had to work,” French said. “It was a great idea and I wanted to try it, but yes, I didn’t want to try it on somebody else. I thought, well, who am I going to try it on and it dawned on me, it had to be me.”

Dermatologic surgeon Dr. Bill Coleman was one of the original doctors who studied Botox for FDA approval for winkles and later to reduce underarm sweating. He said the deaths the FDA is investigating involve children with cerebral palsy using Botox to relax their spastic leg muscles.

"But in order to achieve that, the doctors who have been trying to help these children have had to use massive amounts of Botox because they have to use such large amounts the safety threshold has been reached,” Coleman said.

Doctors said these children were getting .20-100 times the dosage as a cosmetic patient, and in rare cases, it can interfere with the muscles for breathing and swallowing. While the FDA said it is also looking into reports of problems in other patients who used the drug for variety of conditions, local experts stress for wrinkles, it’s safe.

“Botox has been an amazing drug that now has been used in some 13 million different people over the last 20 years or so,” Coleman said. “So, it’s an absolutely unbelievable success story.”

Added French, “I could not reassure people anymore greatly than I would like to that the therapeutic use of it for the vocal cords, for the eye muscles and the use of it for cosmetic purposes in the face is completely safe.”

Tulane dermatologist Mary Lupo has injected Botox cosmetic 13,000 times and said nationally, there is a 97 percent satisfaction rate with no serious problems.

“The overwhelming statistics have proven that this is an extremely safe, extremely effective and has actually the highest patient satisfaction rate of any cosmetic procedure that we perform,” Lupo said.

Those who don’t like the results are usually people who have too much excessive skin, something Botox cannot help.

“People may recall that a couple of years ago, that a chiropractor in Florida injected illegal unavailable (Botox) bought from China botchulinum toxin and gave this to people and put them in the hospital and they almost died,” Lupo said.

Bottom line – they said go to a doctor who used Botox cosmetic regularly, who has a good reputation and ask to see that the bottle is from the company Allergan, with its identifying hologram on it.

The FDA said patients who get any brand of botulinum toxin injection for any reason – cosmetic or medical – should get immediate treatment if they begin to have difficulty swallowing or breathing, slurred speech, muscle weakness or difficulty holding their heads up.