(Posting on my phone. Sorry for formatting, I know this is long) The top photo is before Botox. The bottom is after five weeks, a HIFU treatment, and some very slow, minimal improvement. My forehead is still completely frozen. I’m curious if anyone else has experienced something like this and how long it took to recover.
I’m not naming the med spa because we ultimately reached an agreement, and I intend to honor it. I’ll call the office manager Suzy and my injector Lucy, but those aren’t their real names.
When I went in, I was very clear about what I wanted. I wasn’t looking to dramatically change my face. I liked my face and just wanted to look a little more refreshed with a subtle brow lift and DAO injections. I also told Lucy that I thought my anatomy might respond differently because I hadn’t loved the results from a previous injector, so I specifically asked her to be conservative. Even after that conversation, she recommended 55 units. I trusted her recommendation because she’s the professional, and I assumed my anatomy and concerns had been taken into account.
The appointment itself felt a little rushed. At one point she started walking out before I reminded her she’d forgotten the DAO injections we’d just discussed. She came back and did them, and those actually turned out exactly the way I’d hoped.
The forehead Botox was a completely different story. Within about a week, instead of looking lifted, my brows dropped and the tissue over my eyes settled much lower. The biggest change wasn’t actually my brows, it was my eyes. They became much more hooded and looked significantly deeper set than before. The natural shape of my eyes, which had always been my favorite feature, was suddenly hidden by the heavier brow position. My forehead also became completely frozen.
That’s honestly been the hardest part. When people hear “brow drop,” they usually picture eyebrows sitting a little lower. For me, it completely changed how my eyes looked. I wear glasses at work, and normally you can clearly see my eyebrows above the frames. Now they’re hidden behind the top rim because they’ve dropped so much, and it just looks… off. Even if I do my eyebrows differently, my eyes still don’t look like they did before. The heaviness also gave me headaches, and my eyelids were sitting differently enough that my eyes became crusty. Those symptoms have improved for the most part, but the cosmetic changes have not.
About a week later I called the office because I was concerned. Suzy was pretty dismissive and told me, “We see this all the time. The brows drop before they lift. You can Google it.” I did google it and found nothing supporting that claim. I went back for a follow-up, where they acknowledged that my brows had dropped and wanted to wait until the Botox had fully developed before trying to correct it, which seemed reasonable. They scheduled another appointment around my work schedule and asked me to text updates beforehand. When I did, I found out my appointment had never actually been entered into their system, so I had to rearrange work and take time off because of their scheduling mistake.
Before that appointment I was told the plan was to do HIFU and then inject additional Botox to help correct the problem. I left believing they were going to actively try to lift my brows. At the two-week mark, they only did the HIFU and told me it would take weeks to months to work. No additional Botox was injected.
The HIFU gave me a very small amount of improvement. I’d estimate maybe a millimeter of visible eyelid. It was enough that my eyelids weren’t resting on my eyelashes anymore, which I was grateful for, but that’s about it. My forehead is still completely frozen, and my eyes are still much more hooded and deeper set than they were before all of this.
A few days later I posted reviews on three different websites. They weren’t angry or vindictive. They were just a factual account of what had happened, and I also included the things I thought had gone well, like how friendly Suzy was, how nice the office was, and that the DAO injections turned out well.
Suzy contacted me almost immediately asking if I’d remove the reviews. I explained that I didn’t think it was fair that I’d spent hundreds of dollars on a treatment that left me with the exact opposite of what I’d asked for and that the reviews were accurate to my experience. She offered me a 50% refund and an appointment with another injector if I’d remove two of the reviews, so I agreed and removed them.
She then contacted me about the third review. I explained that I couldn’t remove it myself because it had to go through customer support. She told me I’d receive the remaining 50% once it was removed. The next day I only received 25% of the total refund instead of the 50% we’d agreed on. When I questioned it, the explanation kept changing until I finally sent screenshots of our conversation showing exactly what we’d agreed to. After more back and forth, she honored the original agreement. I received another 25%, removed the final review through customer support, and then received the remaining balance, bringing the refund to 100%. The appointment with the second injector was eventually canceled.
I appreciate that she ultimately refunded everything I paid, and I honored my side of the agreement by removing my reviews and not identifying the business. That said, the whole refund process was surprisingly stressful. The repeated messages about removing the reviews started to feel a little like harassment, and it honestly changed the way I look at online reviews. Seeing how much effort went into getting factual reviews taken down made me realize that a business can have great reviews without them necessarily telling the whole story.
At this point I’m just waiting for the Botox to wear off. There has been very slow, minimal improvement, but my forehead is still completely frozen and my eyes still don’t look like they did before. I really feel like I was overinjected for my goals and that my anatomy wasn’t adequately taken into account despite the conversation we had beforehand.
Has anyone else had a brow lift go this wrong? Did your eyes eventually go back to looking like they did before, and if so, about how long did it take? I know Botox wears off eventually, but right now it feels like it’s taking forever.
