post botox blues
Content Warning: This post talks about injections in some detail. If you have an overactive imagination or are queasy about needles, feel free to skip this one.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of doing my first ever Botox injections. Prior to my diagnosis, I had no interest in pursuing a Botox procedure. This was before I realized that Botox had some pretty significant uses in medical applications, such as migraines, TMJ, or Tourette's Syndrome (as I found out the day of my diagnosis). In between medications and months away from any contact with the person who facilitates CBIT due to the lengthy waitlist, I opted to try it out for the first time. I even talked with one of my coworkers who actually uses Botox as well for their migraines just to get as much information as possible before my appointment.
Nothing could have prepared me for the day my appointment came.
All in all, I had at the very least 20 injections across my face and neck. I'm usually not one to balk at pain (especially pain I'm prepared to receive), but I think this felt so fundamentally different and uncomfortable in ways that I had never experienced before. The feeling of something foreign traveling into your facial muscles and almost weighing them down is certainly an interesting sensation. My eyelids and my neck were probably the worst areas to get injected for me. Getting a needle poked into each of my eyelids and feeling liquid kind of just seeping across the both of them was enough to make me feel incredibly faint. I had to take a break and drink some water before moving onto the neck. The neck was just as bad, with the neurologist instructing me to move my head from side to side as the syringe was implanted in either my left or right side of my neck. I could feel the needle to a nauseating degree.
By the time it was over, I was on the verge of passing out and needed a moment to recover. My neurologist was impassively moving on to talk about next steps and checking back in after three weeks or something. I could not really process anything until I was back in my car, checking my face and finding spots of blood in certain areas. As soon as I got home, it was all I could do to succumb to exhaustion and fall asleep.
All in all, best procedure ever haha!!! /j
But in all seriousness, it has already made a significant difference in a lot of my motor tics. The urge still resides a bit uncomfortably, but my ability to act on those urges has reduced almost entirely. I could still force my muscles to react to those urges if I wanted to, but it's more conscious than unconscious now. It's quite strange being able to experience stillness in my face again, something I thought I'd never get to have back. Is this what people feel like regularly? I like it.
Granted, I still have my vocal tics to contend to. There's also the possibility that my tics will travel elsewhere, but that remains to be seen. While I'm not looking forward to redoing this in three months, I am admittedly very satisfied with the results.
Some artists that I've been listening to:
Thoughts? Leave a comment in my guestbook or shoot me an email.
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