At 55, I finally gave in and tried Botox. Three days later, I developed a humiliating side effect doctors don’t warn you about

I was looking in the mirror to check that my mascara hadn’t given me a third eyebrow when I noticed it.

A deep line had formed on the left side of my forehead. Nothing on the right.

‘Great,’ I thought. ‘Now my ageing isn’t even symmetrical.’

I leaned closer, squinting, turning my head under the bathroom light like a teenager in a skincare ad. There it was, clear as day, my first proper line. Not a delicate little crinkle, but a trench.

It crossed my mind that maybe I could pull off a Goldie Hawn fringe – the ‘almost in your eyes but not quite’ look. But my hair was tucked behind my glasses, and my fringe was too short anyway. The line stayed, and it seemed to deepen the longer I stared at it.

I’ve always looked younger than my age. Round face, soft skin. People used to guess ten years too low. But a friend in the beauty industry once told me, ‘You’ll stay looking young until menopause hits. Then everything changes.’

I’d laughed back then. But she was right.

At 55, I could see it happening, the slow rearranging of my face. Lines forming where there weren’t any before. One side of my face ageing faster than the other, like my reflection had split into two people.

Then a friend gave me a voucher for a cosmetic clinic.

I wasn’t planning on a full overhaul. I just wanted to fix that one deep line, the one that had been taunting me in every mirror.

At the appointment, the injector asked what my ‘goals’ were. She was older, kind, confident and clearly knew what she was doing. She called a doctor for approval, and before I knew it, she was circling my face with the needle – forehead, frown lines, crow’s feet.

‘All over?’ I asked, half-joking.

‘Just the wrinkly bits,’ she smiled.

I followed all the rules afterwards, expecting to emerge refreshed and rested.

Instead, three days later, I was dribbling into my cup of tea.

It happened at the airport on my way to Vanuatu. One sip of tea, and it slid down the side of my mouth like my lips had forgotten their job.

I dabbed at it, embarrassed. Then it happened again.

By the time I landed, I couldn’t control it at all. I’d be talking, smiling, eating and feel that telltale trickle.

It was mortifying.

But worse was what came next.

Over the next few days, my face stopped listening to me. I couldn’t frown, couldn’t lift my eyebrows, couldn’t move.

Everyone jokes about the ‘frozen face’, how you can’t tell if someone’s angry or surprised.

But no one talks about what it feels like when your muscles don’t respond.

For me, it wasn’t just numbness. It was panic. Like being buried alive, but inside your own skin.

My face felt heavy and uncooperative. I’d try to raise an eyebrow and nothing would happen. I’d try to smile and only half of it worked. It was as though I’d been locked out of my own expressions.

The panic would sneak up on me. I’d be sitting quietly, then suddenly feel my chest tighten.

My heart would start racing. I’d try to take a deep breath and tell myself, ‘You’re fine. You can breathe. You’re just imagining it.’

But I wasn’t. It was real, physical claustrophobia, as if someone had shrink-wrapped my face.

At night, I’d lie still, terrified to move, whispering to myself to stay calm until the waves of panic passed. Sometimes I’d wake up and instinctively try to yawn or stretch my mouth, and when it didn’t move properly, that suffocating feeling would crash over me again.

It lasted for weeks.

I looked fine, maybe even fresher. The injector had done a neat job; no one could tell. But inside, I was quietly unravelling.

When I returned home, I went back to the clinic. The injector said she’d never heard of anyone dribbling or feeling claustrophobic.

She then rang the doctor, who said it was actually ‘common’ but would pass.

Eventually, it did. But even months later, sometimes I’d find myself dabbing at dribble like a woman in her eighties.

Three months later, my follow-up appointment came around. I told myself I’d just had a bad reaction the first time.

I walked into the same clinic, sat in the same chair, and said, ‘Let’s do what we did last time.’

It was a mistake.

This time, my right eyelid collapsed. Slowly, over a few days, my reflection changed until I looked uneven and strange – one eye open and bright, the other dull and drooping.

Then one night, my 16-year-old daughter walked in mid-conversation and gasped, ‘Mum! Have you had a stroke?’

I wanted to reassure her, to laugh it off, but I couldn’t – I literally couldn’t move my face enough to smile.

People online started commenting on my photos. ‘You look stoned,’ one man wrote. He wasn’t wrong.

For three months, I waited for it to fade, watching my own face return in slow motion.

My decision to inject was not just about vanity – it was about visibility.

When you’re young, people look at you. They notice you. Then one day, they don’t.

People talk about the male gaze like it’s something to despise, but truthfully I miss being seen. Botox felt like a way to keep that connection, to stay visible in a world that sidelines older women.

But instead of visibility, I got invisibility of a different kind. I didn’t look like myself. I didn’t feel like myself.

I’ve discovered that don’t believe in ageing gracefully – I believe in ageing joyfully.

I’ve never been graceful in my life. I run marathons, cycle through heat for charity, and I’m training for a backyard ultra. And even though I’m terrible at it, I do it because I can. Because I want to live loudly, messily, joyfully.

That, to me, is real ageing – not the absence of lines, but the presence of life.

I love seeing older women online who still have movement in their faces. Who smile with their whole being. Who remind the world that wisdom and wit are more beautiful than smoothness.

So if you’re standing in front of the mirror, staring at a new line, deciding whether to do something about it, do it for you. Not for anyone else.

And if you ever start to feel trapped inside your own skin, take a breath. It will pass.

Because eventually, your face, and your sparkle, always find their way back.

As told to Rebel Wylie 

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