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Reasons to Rethink Botox: Botox Immunity

Like many women, Frankie Waring assumed she would always be able to rely on Botox to keep her wrinkles at bay.

After all, while expensive creams and serums have never quite lived up to their promises, Botox has always enjoyed a reputation as the miracle anti-ageing quick fix that works every time.

So when Frankie, 24, started developing early lines between her eyebrows and across her forehead - due, she suspects, to exposing her skin to the elements while riding her horse - she had no hesitation deciding what to do next.

Frankie, from Worcester, who runs her own business making party banners, says: 'I know I'm young, but my lines were really bothering me and I wanted to stop them before they got too serious.

'I really wanted a nice smooth forehead again, so I went to a reputable national chain of clinics about six months ago who agreed Botox would be a good preventative measure. I then paid £225 to have two areas of my upper face injected.'

Over the next few days, Frankie watched for signs that the neurotoxin - made from the same bacteria that cause botulism food poisoning - was starting to take hold and paralyse her facial muscles as promised.

But she waited in vain. Whenever she checked, she could still wrinkle her forehead, and her frown lines stayed as visible as ever. After a month, she informed the clinic that the Botox had not worked - and was invited back for another dose at no extra charge.

'It was a different nurse this time, who was just as experienced. I had loads more injections and they assured me they were using a full dose of the top-grade product - but again nothing.

'I was really shocked. Never for a moment did I think it wouldn't work for me. But now I have researched it, I have found out that I must be one of the people who is resistant.

'I've always been the sort to never catch so much as a cough or a cold, so it makes sense really. I'm surprised it didn't occur to me before that my body could fight it off.'

Since it first became available for cosmetic use in the UK just over decade ago, Botox has been seen as a magic bullet in the fight against ageing.

Yet despite the fact that over a million treatments are given in this country every year, it is a little known fact that not only are some patients immune to it altogether, but a growing number of women who have been getting the jabs too often, for too many years, are gr

adually building up a resistance to it.

It is estimated that anything between 0.5 and 3 per cent of patients don't respond at all to the neurotoxin, which works by blocking messages in the nerve endings and weakening facial muscles for around four months at a time.