More men are getting Botox but it's not without risk

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Increased demand for cosmetic injectables, and guidelines that allow registered and enrolled nurses to use telehealth doctors to get scripts for the prescription-only drugs, have fuelled massive growth in the industry.

Transcript

00:00Relax.

00:03Anti-wrinkle injections were once thought to be something women sought out to defy the

00:08ageing process, but increasingly that's no longer the case.

00:12Having grown up in the 70s and 80s and been sun exposed, that now it's starting to show

00:18effect in different areas.

00:20Certainly the number of men that we treat has been slowly increasing over time, and

00:24I think it would be probably somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent now.

00:28The Australian facial injectables industry was valued at $4.1 billion in 2023 and is

00:35forecast to grow 19.3 per cent every year until 2030.

00:40The majority of the procedures were done for aesthetic rather than therapeutic reasons.

00:46Telehealth prescription businesses for injectables and fillers have fuelled the boom, allowing

00:52nurses to set up their own businesses.

00:55Bunnings owner Wes Farmers is a huge player, buying up instant cosmetics last year.

01:02The regulation doesn't require doctors to perform this service, so the nurses could

01:06do that themselves.

01:08Surgical and non-surgical cosmetic procedures are not without risk.

01:12The medical watchdog ARPA has received 472 formal complaints about procedures since 2022.

01:21It's also banned or restricted 35 practitioners.

01:25Some in the industry are calling for more standardised training for doctors and nurses.

01:32They also want tighter rules around the use of telehealth prescription services.

01:39Cosmetic nurse Priscilla Rilgic says she is well supported by the telehealth scripting

01:44service she uses, and is the proud owner of a growing business.

01:49It's so well thought out.

01:50You will just contact the doctor that scripted you and your patient and they will contact

01:56you immediately.

01:57A cost of living crisis not enough to stop some Australians chasing their youth.

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