Botox and a Haircut – a normal day at the office

It was carried out highly professionally by a well trained doctor in the hospital, in the neurology outpatients area and in the treatment room next door to my neurologist professor, who came to visit during the treatment. The injections were a little painful but nothing like I expected and as has consistently been the case, the fear was far greater than the reality.

I can categorically state that I did not have my lips done, despite what some people apparently expected, though I genuinely came close to adding the nose to today’s agenda. Prior to the treatment, the doctor conducted her interview and assessment and asked whether I had been experiencing nose twitches as well. My wife and I confirmed that we had both noticed it starting recently. The doctor offered to treat that area but stated it would be more painful, so we decided to leave it for next time. It seems that as a treatment modality, Botox is surprisingly versatile and more than just the eyes could have been helped, but I have limits, and the eyes were enough for today. Obviously psychosomatically my nose started twitching more than it usually does, as if to make the point that it wanted Botox too, but we just focused on the eyelids.

So now I wait for the results. They say it should start to show within four days and I have an appointment in just under a month to have a booster and a check-up. My eyes feel completely normal. Not in a good way, of course, but in a persistently not normal way.

Whether it stops the involuntary eye closing or the involuntary rapid blinking that is now relatively frequent remains to be seen, but the procedure was flawless from my perspective. Afterwards I came home, had a good sleep, and my son was kind enough to cut my hair, which is possibly more important than the Botox given the state of how I looked. I only put the haircut in the title to emphasise that the Botox really wasn’t such a big deal at all. Far more painful were my legs during the drive home.

A good friend sent me a WhatsApp message last night: “Hope tomorrow is much less awful than you fear” and then “More importantly, I hope it gives you improvement worth the fear.” He was right on the first. I hope he will be right on the second.

There is no treatment or cure for PSP but it is good to know that one of its symptoms has a potentially practical remedy, one that may reduce the temporary blindness and discomfort that I all too often experience.