Sunday, November 13, 2011

Prevent Oral Herpes Outbreak

Prevention of oral herpes (cold sores, or the medical term herpes labalis) is desirable as active lesions are both painful and more likely to shed virus that can be spread.  Individuals with oral infections can spread the lesions to other areas with broken skin, such as the fingers or nail bed or the eye. So the infection control is very important for your health. And prevention is also important for skin health as oral lesions can get secondarily infected or leave scaring that can be unsightly from a contour perspective but also cause post-inflammatory pigment discoloration. For some individuals treatment of the cold sores as soon as you know that they are going to occur is good enough, it will shorten the average outbreak from ten days to four days and there is less shedding of virus as well. Unfortunately treating each outbreak won't decrease the number of episodes you will have. To minimize the chance of any scaring or unsightly pigment is important to keep any lesions very clean, which may mean the use of an antiseptic. For women who want to still use lipstick some experts will suggest a mineral gloss with sunscreen in it. I also think that those who have frequent outbreaks taking a daily antiviral to minimize outbreaks, or at least a preventative course of anti-viral with aesthetic treatments is very important.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

The Right 'botox' for you

The number one cosmetic treatment: getting Botox, has even more choices for those looking to refresh and rejuvenate their look. Knowing what treatment to get, and now which product to get, has gotten more complex. At last count there were over 140 different indications for the use of Botox in medical and aesthetic treatments.  Some of the most common reasons to get these treatments are to resolve a permanent brow scowl, to renew the tired appearance of eyes,  to alleviate the deep forehead furrows. The furrows we all devlop are influcend by the weakening elasticity of the face, our genetics, and our expressions.  Botox itself was the first cosmetic neurotoxin approved. If you want to put a correct generic term to the treatment it is called BoNT-A, and all the current brand products are under this category of medication. The current BoNT-A products include Botox, Dysport and now Xeomin. Depending upon your treatment goals and you and an experienced injector can decide which treatment is right for you.The clinical effects of the boulinum toxin (BoNT-A) are related to the dose, the placement, and the product but are transient, and usually diminish over several months and resolves because of natural regeneration of the nerve terminals in the muscle treated. The three products come from the same source, but they do have some differences. For some areas, and for some patients, you can have successful treatment with either Botox, Dysport or Xeomin, and getting treatments based on price may be a reasonable strategy. But for most, you should get a consultation, the product and the desired affect should be done after planning. The products do have different proteins associated with them, and this will affect how each of us reacts to the treatment and may also affect how long the treatment effects last as the proteins even affect how much spread the product will have after placement. Even experts will disagree on how to switch patients from one product to the other, so we will likely be hearing much more about this as time goes on. At Hada Cosmetic Medicine the most common 'botox' used is still Botox itself, but as Dysport is relatively newer, and Xenomen is extremely new, it is probably too early to say which product will ultimately be the most popular with injectors and clients. 
.