From migranes to wrinkles to sweaty palms, muscle-paralyzing BOTOX has been a 'wonder-drug' of sorts. However, I'm skeptical about Dr. Ourian's hair raising 'discovery' now hitting the UK press(The Sun) and making the rounds again on FOX news:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,528411,00.html
Back in February 2009, when the story originally broke in the U.S., I mentioned to some patients that the hair regrowth Dr. O. observed in his mother might have something more to do with her recently stopping chemo (regrowth typically takes 12-14 months after chemo) than with the Botox injections for her headaches.
Botox for hair loss would be quite a long-shot (not to mention, expensive!) especially considering there's no published, peer-reviewed articles and not a single photo of a result, anywhere!
For now, hair loss patients are best to stick with the FDA-approved treatments/procedures recommended by board-certified hair docs.
On a separate, but releated topic, Dr. Jerry Shapiro, a colleage and friend in Canada/BC registered a clinical trial with the US-NIH on Botox for Alopecia Areata back in 2006, http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00408798, but no recruitment has started.
