A woman says she has been left with a ‘fish gill’ after getting Botox for the first time, admitting she felt ‘kind of freaked out’.
Shelby Hooks (@shelby.kight) posted a video on TikTok recently to show what happened to her face after getting masseter Botox, asking: “What is happening with my masseter Botox?!”
In the clip, she demonstrated how her jaw muscle had started ‘popping out’ after getting the treatment, which sees Botox injected into the masseter to temporarily block nerve signals in the muscle.
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"Attention to anyone who has done masseter Botox before or does Botox for a living?” she asked.
“I need help.”
Showing what happened to the muscle when she bit down, Hooks continued: “What the hell is my masseter muscle doing?
“It's popping out, it doesn't happen on the other side, only here when I clench my jaw.
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“It's my first time doing masseter Botox and this doesn't seem normal. I'm kind of freaked out.”
The healthcare worker from the US explained she had the treatment to stop her teeth grinding, rather than for cosmetic reasons.
Her ‘Botox fail’ post racked up more than 92,000 views, along with numerous comments from other TikTok users – including some who said they’d experienced the same problem, while others offered up an explanation.
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One wrote: “Sometimes one side of the muscle kicks in before the other, causing the 'fish gill' like effect."
Someone else said: “This happened to me but it settled after 2 weeks and disappeared.”
A third wrote: “I’ve had it done 2x. 30 units is not enough if your muscle was strong to begin with. I am pretty sure I get 50 on each side.”
Hooks replied: “That would make sense, the injector said I had crazy strong masseters lol.”
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Another who said they were a ‘senior aesthetics lecturer’ echoed this, saying: “Senior aesthetics lecturer. For a strong masseter muscle there should be a minimum of three points that are injected anywhere up to sixty units.”
When someone else expressed their concern over the treatment, Hooks also said: “Mine went down about 90 percent after two weeks and then we just did a touch up injection to fix the rest! It’s fixable!”
California-based aesthetician Anusha Dahan previously explained on Instagram that the issue is a short-term side effect that usually disappears a couple of days after the treatment.
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She wrote on Instagram: “This usually occurs when dose of toxin is small OR all three muscle layers were not treated altogether.”
Dahan added that you’re best off just waiting to see if the problem disappears on its own within a fortnight, saying if it doesn’t, you’ll be able to have a small top-up of the Botox to help.
Jess Hardiman