Medical science is marvelous but I have a major question.
First, let’s talk about Botox and wrinkles.
As people age, they accumulate wrinkles. Finally, when they are very old they’re just one big wrinkle. People who worry a lot often develop deep wrinkles in their foreheads. Could it be that if they didn’t worry about wrinkles, they would develop fewer? (That is not my major question.)
Botox, pioneered by a Vancouver doctor, alleviates wrinkles when injected into your face and is a rather fun compound. It’s made up of the good old-fashioned toxin that causes botulism.
Yes, you read it right. That’s the deadly bacterium that grows in improperly canned food. Our old friend Saddam Hussein, and his goofy followers, were busy stockpiling botulinus and other deadly toxins. They claimed they were not up to any skullduggery.
Could Saddam simply be starting a huge, secret dermatology clinic? (That, by the way, is not my major question.)
The truth is, botulism is a dangerous and effective way to kill people, being 12 times as deadly as rattlesnake venom. Fancy that.
Dermatologists don’t inject pure botulinus toxin into your face to control your wrinkles. Doctors dilute the toxin and then under laboratory conditions charge patients a grand+ to alleviate those nasty wrinkles.
Remember that bedside manner
I figure I could make enough botulinus toxin in our kitchen to supply every dermatologist in the world for a year. Maybe two. My cost would be about $10. So at $1,000 or more a treatment, it’s obvious that dermatologists are making a buck or two. Nothing wrong with that — medical school is expensive and MDs learn important stuff.
One thing you learn is to put your patient at ease when she (sometimes he but usually she) says: “Lordy, Doctor, you’re pumping me full of one of the most dangerous toxins known to mankind.”
As the dermatologist, you just slip on your rubber gloves and explain that many things in medicine are dangerous in high doses. For example, aspirin. Successful medicine is often just a matter of knowing what the right dosage is and accepting Visa or American Express.
It’s a fine idea to develop a good relationship with the patient who wants to get rid of her wrinkles because you’ll have to see her about twice a year. Botox deadens the nerves that cause frowns but the body repairs the damage of the deadly, albeit diluted, toxin in about six months.
A question. Does the dermatologist explain to the wrinkle what happens if the injection goes awry and ends up in the wrinkle’s eye? Blindness? The inability to wink? (This however, is still not my major question.)
Is this procedure painful? (Not being stuck in the eye, being stuck in the wrinkle.) The answer is “no” because a very thin needle is used. You hardly even feel the prick.
Speaking of pricks, men often have problems with them. One of the major problems is that as a man ages, his erections lessen in both intensity and duration. He frets about his wrinkled winkie.
Does worrying about wrinkles below the belt cause wrinkles above the eyebrow? (I don’t know and again this is not my major medical question.)
The fact is, people in our society are consumed with youth and vitality. Because of our preoccupation with youth and vitality, we spend a great deal of time worrying about our wrinkles on our faces and our winkies.
Vital and wrinkle-free
Just as medical science has come to the rescue of wrinkled foreheads, it has galloped to the aid of the guy who can’t get it up.
As with the wrinkled forehead, there is an injection that medical science has concocted to help a man who suffers from a flaccid or wrinkled winkie.
The solution can be self-injected into your winkie and bingo, you’ll be the proud owner of a rock-hard, die-hard power tool that’ll make a vibrator envious.
Depending on the amount of the injection, the length of your pleasure will last from minutes to hours. With an industrial dose you can keep it up for the entire Labor Day weekend.
Isn’t it a strange coincidence that both sexes hate wrinkles? Women on their foreheads. Men between their legs. (This is still not my major medical question.)
Perhaps this mutual dislike for wrinkles proves how much the two sexes have in common. Certainly, when women have decreased their wrinkles, they feel sexier. Ditto for men.
Think of what medical science has wrought — an injection to make both women’s and men’s wrinkles disappear — and in different areas of the body.
Both, being injections, rely on needles.
Now, here’s my major medical question. What happens if they mix up the needles?
Would women have protruding foreheads for several hours? Maybe they’d have to wear hard hats. Maybe they’d look like unicorns.
Boy, would that be funny.
Especially for the poor fellow who ended up with a wrinkle-free winkie and a six-month hard hat requirement.
Originally published in Vue Weekly, January 1998.
