As we age the development of wrinkles on our faces is inevitable. The motion of the muscles of facial expression eventually cause permanent creases or wrinkles to develop in the skin. For some people wrinkles represent a positive reflecting signs of knowledge and experience. For others they are a sign of losing one’s youth and getting older. While no one really wants to develop wrinkles on their face, and many people fight it by a variety of anti-aging treatments, for some it is a real phobia. The morbid fear of developing facial wrinkles is known as rhytiphobia. People with rhytiphobia have an extreme fear of getting wrinkles and will go to great lengths to avoid them. It is the lengths that people go to in avoiding their fears that define it as a phobia. Thus does getting Botox injections constitute treatment of a phobia? It is extreme to undergo facial injections to avoid or lessen facial wrinkles. Perhaps in the past the concept of having one’s face stuck with needles may have seemed extreme for something as innocuous as a few facial lines and creases. But today Botox is such a common and everyday occurrence that no one would think of it as a phobia treatment. Some people get Botox a few times to see if they like it, others get it with great regularity (every 3 or 4 months) to avoid any new wrinkles developing. To the most regular Botox users perhaps it is a form of phobia treatment, but at least it is a very effective one.
Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana