Botox For Baldness
June 24th, 2009
The telegraph.co.uk website reported on an anecdotal case of hair restoration utilizing a combination of Botox ® and vitamins. Dr. Ourian in Beverly Hills reports on a treatment for his mother. She had undergone chemotherapy treatment which had left her without hair suffering from headaches. Her son turned to Botox ® injections in an effort to reduce her headaches. He added vitamins to the Botox ® for unstated reasons. Fortunately his mother not only had relief of her headaches but also regrew her hair.
These difficult economic times lead to creative marketing. The potential publicity is extremely valuable. Proprietary, minimal recovery, minimal cost, and very low risk treatments are appealing to patients suffering hair loss. This is particularly acute for chemotherapy patients. Hair loss can be the most distressing part of chemotherapy for women and men. Almost all of these patients will have spontaneous regrowth of their hair if nothing is done!
This is a single case report. I fear individuals with hair loss will feel compelled to seek out centers offering this off label use of Botox ®. They will turn to anything which might give them their hair back. It will linger as “Internet legend” long past the completion of meaningful scientific studies two to three years from now. Even if this treatment is shown to be ineffectual, I fear the practice will continue for years.