Give Me My Crow’s Feet Back! Botox Made My Eye Bags and Wrinkles Worse

I can’t believe I spent $250 to look ten years older.

Image by freepik

Thanks to what I call “bargain Botox,” poor olds like me can actually afford a cosmetic treatment that was once only accessible to rich people. I’ve purchased discounted Botox through Groupon and also saved by going to cheap medspas far removed from Beverly Hills. But chasing nominally invasive cosmetic procedures at bargain rates is not without its problems. One such discounted Botox treatment gave me new wrinkles where I never had them before and created huge bags under my eyes.

I can’t believe I paid my hard-earned money to look ten years older. $250 to be exact!

Bargain medspas

I first started getting Botox at a deeply discounted rate by way of Groupon. The platform allows businesses to offer services to first-time customers at a much lower price. The idea is that if satisfied with your discounted service the first time, you’ll buy another at full price. Yeah, right. People like me just hop from business to business, taking advantage of each Groupon. But once you use one at a particular establishment, you can’t buy another. You have to pay full price. So soon, I’d blown through all the medspas offering Groupons in my area. And so began my search for a medspa that offered low prices every day.

I found one such establishment wedged between a China Bowl Express and a check cashing place in a strip mall with Food for Less as its anchor store. The price of the Botox was only $8 a unit! Typically, this stuff sells for $12 to $15 a unit, or even $20. Seeing that you have to inject a substantial amount of units for the Botox to work, $8 a unit is a much more economical way to go. At least this was my assumption before the doctor botched my face.

My first impression of the medspa was that it was acceptable: modest but clean. Fine by me. I didn’t see any cockroaches skittering over the Botox vials. Inject me.

I arrived at the appointed time and waited until the receptionist called me in to see the doctor. In the treatment room, he scrutinized my face. There’s nothing like suffering under the critical gaze of a trained professional who has no qualms about telling…